Saturday, December 19, 2009

Last night the northwest wind blew, and blew and blew! It was a pretty steady gale force (30 mph) with gusts up to 40 mph. Sometime before sunrise, the wind died down to a more manageable 15 mph and so we decided to haul up the anchor and move to a more protected location. We had a little difficulty starting the engine and Gale had to use his “jump start” technique. Shortly after 9 am we were on our way. The temperature was 62°F with partly cloudy skies.

Maureen drove most of the 15-mile trip to Sarasota navigating through some very narrow channels. At one point, she mistook a pair of small channel markers as marking a side channel and ignored them. That was when we ran over a sand shoal at a pretty good speed. We bumped over the shoal (ran aground) and found ourselves back in deeper water right away. It didn’t seem like there was any damage to the drive leg as it continued to propel us forward. A little further down the way, we slowed and put the engine in neutral and then reverse. Things appeared to be working properly.






It was turning into a lovely day as we came into the harbor at noon near Marina Jacks in Sarasota. Many boats were anchored there and we found a nice spot to drop our anchor very close to Island Park. We had a little lunch and while Maureen was cleaning up, Gale and Lucy went out in the dinghy to see if they could catch any fish. The fishermen returned empty-handed but ready for more adventures ashore. After a few phone calls, we set out in the dinghy and beached it at O’Leary’s Restaurant. We were told that if you ordered something at the bar, you could keep the dinghy there without a fee. We ordered a drink and had a nice visit with a couple of local sailors, Patrick and Ann Egan, who gave us some good information about the area. We were looking for a good WiFi signal in order to ‘Skype’ our kids and were told that Smokin’ Joes bar on the main street had WiFi. We walked up to the bar and sat outside where we were able to get a good signal but the noise from the bar was so loud, we couldn’t make any calls. We walked back to the beach and dinghied home.

Whenever we are at anchor and get up at night, we take a look out the window to make sure we are in the same spot we were when we went to bed. At some point during the night, our anchor drug and we found ourselves on the other side of the boat we were anchored near. Fortunately we didn’t get hung up on anything and the anchor set itself but it is always a little disconcerting to know that you have moved. The rest of the night was not very restful between the strong winds and wondering if the anchor was really set.