Dija ever meet people who you had such instant rapport with that you get the impression you've know them forever? We 've had such a run of good luck, or is it just that "boat people" are so attuned to the world. Jeff and Suzanne Wright not only took us in like long lost relatives, they also invited Paul and Brenda Schlecter (also of the Trawlers and Trawlering email list) over so we could all mee for the first time. What a great gathering. We hope to see Paul and Brenda on the water in their refurbished troller soon.
Waiting on the Wright's pier for us was the radar part Claire and Pete Mallory and Autry Hazzard collaborated on getting to us. I can never thank you all enough for that effort. Unfortunately, the radar remained inoperable in the low range bands. I made the command decision to replace the radar with something new ASAP, and Jeff was Johnny-on-the-spot with phone numbers and transportation. Being Friday the 13th, it befell Jeff to suffer a flat tire while we were out shopping.
The new radar, a Garmin GMR 18HD interfaced with a Garmin 4208 display unit (get that, Jim and Jackie) was procured at a userous rate and installed by me over the last day and a half. Jeff thinks I may have saved a thousand buck doing it myself. This new unit came with a GPS head; so I went ahead and installed it giving us a grand total of three installed GPS units and one portable that can plug into this computer. I think that's enough to get us where we are going.
Speaking of which, as we turn our bow once again to the south, we intend to make Sarasota tomorrow, distant some 37 NM. It will not be an early rising day tomorrow. In our journey, we will travel the inside route, at one point paralleling the Skyline Bridge acrosss Tampa Bay before angling off toward the approaches to Sarasota Bay. We had a lot of time the other day and so poked along so slowly coming down from Tarpon Springs that we only burned 10 gallons of diesel in the 31 NM trip. That's far better that our usual mileage. We have 480 gallons remaining on board.
