Side Trip to: Universal Studios Orlando

Dr. Seuss Lolly Pop Land

Sunday, we traveled to Orlando to the Universal Studio Theme Park and met Josie for the day. We walked through all the parks, had lunch at Three Broomsticks in Hogwarts, enjoyed the Macy’s parade, and thoroughly enjoyed the Manheim Steamroller Christmas Concert. A very cool day by Florida standards, mid 70’s and mostly overcast, rained hard early in the morning.

Macy's Parade, more later

Balloons

Chip Davis, Red Vest

Manheim in Concert

Sara Bay Marina

Tonight is the Sarasota Christmas Boat Parade, several of the boats from the Marina will be go out to watch. We will go by car should be interesting our first Christmas Boat Parade. Mid 80’s and sunny here today, a bit breezy but a nice day. The Marina lies directly on the landing path for Sarasota Airport when the wind is from the south.

Starting to s

A marina with a Chapel at one end of the pier...

ettle in, doing boat cleaning and living on the dirt errands, need to get back on the water soon.

and a Tiki Bar at the other, decisions, decisions!

Planes land directly down the channel.

Lighted Boats on parade

Hard to get good pictures in the dark at night

Manatee River to Sara Bay Marina

Condos and a great marina

It was heavily overcast and quite cool this morning, the forecast was for the cloud cover to be burned off by noon and the wind increasing from the north to 10-15 knots. We walked around the harbor area in the morning.  There are several large condo buildings, houses around the rest of the harbor, a nice marina with floating piers and a newly opened restaurant.  Riviera Dunes is a neat place, and in 5-10 years the surrounding area may catch up to the stylish name.

In Palmetto across from Bradenton

We traveled down the Manatee River on a falling tide and cruised into Tampa Bay, the wind had increased and the waves were on the beam so we did quite a bit of rocking and rolling. As Carol stated it was a bit uncomfortable but not of any real concern. We have learned that the boat can handle the waves. Once through the bay we were back into the Intracoastal and the seas calmed. The Intracoastal is very narrow near Anna Marie Island with 7 feet of water being the common depth in the channel, some of the channels are only  a 100 feet wide with 1 foot water on either side.

We docked at Sara Bay Marina and plan to be here through the Christmas Holiday and will blog when something is worth sharing, maybe every few of days. Enjoy your Christmas preparations – no matter where you are. 

Back to the Intracoastal

Great homes

And low bridges

St. Petersburg to the Manatee River

Highwaymen Art

We are headed southeast and had time for a little more sightseeing before we headed out, so one more trip into beautiful St. Petersburg.  We went to the Historical Museum right across the street from the marina.  They had displays about the history of St. Pete (naturally) and a nice display on the art of the “Florida Highwaymen”, a distinctive group of African American artists who were trying to make a living in the 20’s and developed a distinctive style of painting Florida landscapes. 

There was also a display of the world’s largest collection of signed baseballs – which actually did prove to be interesting. They had over 4,600 balls with signatures from Babe Ruth and Ted Williams to Anastasia, a player with the Racine Belles, a women’s baseball team during WWII.  The featured display was about the first scheduled commercial airline flights in the US – from St. Pete to Tampa in 1914.  By land the trip took 12 hours, by train it was over 2 hours and by air it was a 20 minute flight.  This January they will celebrate the 100^th anniversary of that first flight.

St. Petersburg harbor

Around noon we departed from the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina and decided it may be our favorite stop so far on the loop.  Future Loopers – make the trip up Tampa Bay and spend some time in St. Pete, you will be so glad you did.

It was only a 3 hour trip across Tampa Bay, under the Sunshine Skyway, to reach Palmetto, which is a few miles up the Manatee River.  Our destination was the Riviera Dunes Marina, where we had been invited to a “crossing our wake” party by Jeff and Patty on ‘Osprey’.  Riviera Dunes is a beautiful marina, first class all the way with floating docks, a beautiful restaurant, condominiums and residences as part of the resort – and a nice dock area with grills and tables for those gathered to enjoy.

There were 12 people to celebrate with Osprey and a good time was had by all.

Sunshine Bridge, I-275

Riviera Dunes Entrance

St. Petersburg, FL

A couple of things to clear up from previous posts. The gaggle of fishing craft speeding directly

A swarm of mullet fishermen

at us and throwing nets yesterday on our entrance to the marina are fishing for mullet this time of year they go for fish eggs and the fish meat as well. I understand it is quite profitable, they are not allowed to net on the north side of the pier near the beach, so when the school of fish swim under the pier the fishermen go after them in a mad chase.

Really beautiful in real life

Secondly, here is my Christmas present i.e. a “picture” of this beautiful green and purple glass sculpture.

We visited the Chihuly Collection here in St. Petersburg the only permanent display of his work outside of Tacoma. He worked hard with an architect to design the space, his work is all about the space rather than a specific item. He has a 40 person staff with 12 people on a team that works on the glass during any firing. They produce thousands of large pieces of glass each year. I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

The Roof at Birchwood

This evening Alex and Andre from Allison Leigh one of the trawlers that cross the gulf with us drove up from Gulfport, what a great treat. We had drinks on the roof at the Birchwood and tacos at Red Mesa Restaurant two places we would not have found on our own. It was a beautiful sunny day here in St. Petersburg with a high temperature of 81^o. We heard today the longest streak of sunny days was 768, gotta love Florida weather.

Madeira Beach to St. Petersburg

Cleared the Bridge

Just a short 18 mile run today down Boca Bay and around the tip of the St. Pete/Tampa Bay peninsula. At one point a channel described as a “short cut” diverged from the intracoastal-waterway toward the mainland, Carol was navigating and we started up the channel. As we saw the destination, I asked the height of the bridge we would pass under. Carol looked it up in the Skipper Bob Guide and said it was 25 feet, and continued to peruse the Guide. As we neared the bridge I asked are you sure? “Oops” was the next comment, in the fine print - item 4, the guide stated this bridge was only for boats that can manage to go under an 18 ft bridge. Our measured height is 17’ 1” the tide was rising and the marker was unclear below 16 feet. After some quick calculations we decided to proceed. Carol climbed up on the sundeck roof at the same level as our highest point and RISKED HER HEAD to view the clearance.  Fortunately, we did clear the bridge.   The price for not reading the fine print can be very steep!

Talk about bravery under pressure, Carol should get extra points for the longshoreman’s card. 

The Swarm Attacks

Nets go in the water, but what are they catching?

Just as we approached the marina entrance we noticed about a dozen fisherman in small, flat, one and two-man boats near The Pier. As we approached the entrance they all rushed toward us like a swarm, crowding and leaping over each other’ wakes.  And then, stopped just short of crossing our path and tossed nets into the water. We hope to learn more tomorrow about this bizarre activity.  Must have been a great school of fish right there.

This evening we got dressed up and went to a nice restaurant on Beach Ave.  It was called “Moon Under Water” and was greatly enhanced by all the Christmas lights decorating the palm trees.  Good dinner, pretty walk in the park, a little window-shopping.  Nice ending to an adventurous day.

A view from the helm

Christmas lights in Seminole, FL

Our Stars

Its beginning to look a little like Christmas,,,,, everywhere we go.  Today we went to visit my Mom in Sarasota and her home was beautifully decorated and it was good to see her.   It was over 86 degrees all day and that was a record-setting temperature for Dec. 8 in this area.  We watched the Packers win a game and had lunch with brother-in-law Fred at Sarasota Brewing Company.  If you pass through Sarasota, but are missing a good “up north” bar/restaurant, you must seek out Sarasota Brewing near the Stickney Point Bridge on the Mainland side of the ICW.

Tis the Season

This evening we were treated to a great home-cooked meal at the Naudas and we went on a tour of the Seminole Botanical Gardens, which are exquisitely decorated with Christmas lights.  Musical acts are performing along the walkways and Santa was in residence to visit with young children.  That was followed by a drive through Christmas lighted neighborhoods  - so we are bound to get in the holiday mood even without snow.

We have also decorated the boat to bring the season along with us.

This could be the MTOA turtle

75,000 lights

Nice evening!

Birds at 

Christmas?

A visit to St. Petersburg

The St. Petersburg Boat Show is this weekend and we traveled by car with Al and Charli to the show. Lots of really interesting boating items: compact 12 volt AGM batteries to replace our flooded 8D batteries, an electric motor/generator that could be used to power the boat in case of emergency, new generation of solar panels, information on how to clean our canvas, propane powered dingy motors and on and on. 

The Kitchen, nice couches on the sidewalk

We had lunch at The Kitchen an outdoor restaurant on the street with good food, friendly service and rock music. Then for a walk around town to the Vinoy Hotel, the marina, a great park with a fine climbing tree. We did a short visit to the Chihuly Glass store where I picked out my Christmas Present for $6600 very pretty.

Ready for Christmas

Great climbing tree for about 30 kids

Lastly a bit of grocery shopping and Charli cooked shrimp and asparagus risotto, very tasty. All in all a fine day in St. Petersburg.

The Vinoy a beautiful pink hotel

The Vinoy Marina and basin

Clearwater Beach to Maderia Beach

Friday St. Pete

Readying for the broadside attack

A gorgeous sunny day in Florida; We hardly thought about the 12 degree temperatures in Wisconsin and the ice storms between here and there.  But since we were here…….we took the boat down the Intracoastal Waterway from Clearwater Beach to Madeira Beach.   Along the way we encountered a pirate ship that looked like it was hosting a child’s birthday party – or else they were holding a lot of little hostages.

Great boats and people

At Madeira Beach we pulled in alongside Charli and Al’s boat “Always Five O’Clock” and tied up at the dock outside their beach house.   We met these good friends in Chicago back in September, but even though they have finished the loop their hospitality and friendship continue.  This afternoon we walked to the Johns Pass tourist village and along  the beach at sunset.  We stopped at a tiki bar  (we aim to find one in every town in Florida) and tonight we enjoyed “First Friday” in downtown St. Pete.   It’s just like first Friday in Racine – except for that 12 degrees part.

We enjoyed an Italian dinner in St. Pete along with live music in the street and plenty of people-watching. 

Madiera Beach, St. Johns Pass

Eliot's new Tiki Bar

Fun on the Beach at Sunset

Enjoying the sun in Florida