We pried ourselves away from the Wright's pier this morning at about 0915 and arrived here at Marina Jack's in Sarasota about 1430 via the inside passage. It was a 20-gallon day as we covered 37 NM.
We got a chance to practice with our new Garmin radar in good clear weather where we could evaluate its performance. As it has its own GPS, I can now have the screen oriented to north as I was used to having from my Navy days where we had a gryo to keep everything properly oriented. We looked at several navigation markers and small boats at extremely close radar ranges as we passed them and are confident our new radar will be a very good "defogger."
North Tampa Bay we found the waterway narrow and heavily developed with lots of nice homes to look at as we passed by. Then we ran alongside the famous Sunshine Skyway spanning the bay for a while until we angled off tot the southwest in a bit of bumpy water as the southerly breeze threw some spray in our face.
Once across The Bulkhead shoal in the south end of the bay, we were back into calmer waters in Anna Maria Sound. The waters turned a very pale emerald, something I remember from my 1992 trip through here, truly beautiful. There were a lot of warning signs about manatees, but we have seen none.
After Longboat Pass, we entered much broader Sarasota Bay where that south wind began throwing more spray over the bow.
Here in Marina Jack's we have all the electricity and water we need plus cable TV. Mary is a happy camper. We did a load of laundry at the marina coin-operated laundromat and then had a meal in the marina restaurant.
Tomorrow we plan to get up to the Ringling mansion and art museum (free entry on Mondays!) and see what there is to see. I am trying to talk Mary into riding the 3.7 miles on bikes, but I think she is going to opt for taxi, rental car, or city bus.
While strolling along the pier, we noticed a boat named Light Heart, Jeff and Suzanne Wright's old boat. It is apparently on the market again as it has a for sale sign on it.
