Today we rode our bicycles about a half mile to breakfast and 5 hours and 10.6 miles later we arrived at the boat in need of adult beverages. We didn't get lost, thanks to Mary's tourist road map of the area. The town of Tarpon Springs is a beautifully kept town similar in my mind to places like Naples, although probably not as opulent. We ran through many residential areas and saw some really picturesque waterfronts.
We visited a waterfront Greek restaurant tonight to be able to say we had Greek food in Tarpon Springs; or to avoid having to say we DIDN'T. Go figure.
John and Maxine Stewart (he is a fellow T&T member) of the tug Raven, moored alongside us, came down and visited this afternoon. We enjoyed their company and wished we'd had more time together; maybe on the way home...
Our radar problem wherein that wonderful device refuses to operate in the lower ranges below 12 miles was mostly not a real issue during our transit across the gulf because we were free of fog and saw only one contact all night - plus the sky was clear with a full moon. Being able to see zero miles out to 12. 24, or 36 miles is all well and good, but when you think you might have seen a brief blip at a shorter distance, you'd like to change the range scale down to 6, 3, 1.5, 0.5 or even a quarter mile scale to ensure there is nothing out there that could go "bump in the night." A couple of times I was sure I saw something at around 3 miles ahead on the radar screen for several scans only to have it disappear. At our 8 knot speed, that meant in 22.5 minutes whatever it was would be on top of us. Had I had a shorter range scale available, I could have "zoomed in" to keep a better eye on what turned out to be loons when the time ran down.
Talking with a radar tech here in Tarpon Springs yesterday left me with the impression that the problem with the radar is in the range switch on the box (called an indicator unit) next to the screen and not up in the radar antenna itself. Good news, because brother Jim shipped me his similar (not exact) model indicator unit some year or three back when he removed it from his boat. Bad news, because the indicator unit was resting on a shelf in my yard shed a few hundred miles back up our wake. Good news, because I have fabulous neighbors who have rallied to the cause when I got it into my punkin head that I had to have this radar working full bore and that that used indicator unit was a possible fix.
Our schedule calls for us to be visiting fellow T&T member Jeff Wright's pier tomorrow night in Treasure Island, about 30 miles south of here, and I figured if I could have somebody lay hands on the radar part and FEDEX it this morning to Jeff's we'd be set. But who to perform this task at nine o'clock at night? Enter, a fine set of neighbors.
Autrey Hazzard keeps our keys and collects mail for us when we get these crazy ideas about voyaging. She will tell you right off she is the wrong person to ask to find a heavy piece of electronics in the night in a dark yard shed, but Pete Mallory is not timid and as a fellow retired naval officer and boater, he also knows what a radar looks like. Together, they retrieved the shed key from the house and braved the hazards of my disorganized shed to get the radar into Pete's wife Claire's hands so she could FEDEX it this AM. Thank you all so much. I will report if we have any success.
Paul Schlecter, also of the T&T e-mail list, wrote and wishing to be able to meet us as we pass through the area, and Jeff and Suzanne Wright have graciously set up a dinner tomorrow evening when everybody's schedules mesh. We will get underway from this place before lunch in order to arrive at Treasure Island before 1530 tomorrow.
