After sleeping for 10 hours, we were ready to get started again. Both of us had slept like the dead after being awake so long during the crossing, and we felt really good when we finally woke up, although my brain was still full of cobwebs and conversations seemed to be a bit time-shifted, as there was a delay between what I heard and what my brain understood.
Our initial plan was to stay in Anclote a couple of days to decompress after the crossing, but the marina had been hit hard by the recent hurricanes and was still in the re-building process. So was the surrounding town, only a few places were open. So, we decided to move on to Clearwater.
One effect of the hurricanes was that fuel access was limited. There was lots of fuel available, but marinas had to be re-certified before they could sell it, and the process was still underway. Therefore, we decided to get fuel while we could. The marina we were at had fuel, but it was $5/gallon (expensive). Rich spent some time online, he has a special app for fuel prices, and found a commercial dock about 4 miles away that had fuel for $3/gallon. Since all four boats needed over 100 gallons of fuel each, we all decided to go to the commercial dock for fuel.
We set off up the river to the commercial dock. It was just a rough dock with a fuel truck. Another first for us, we have never gotten fuel directly from a truck before. We had to be a bit careful fueling up, as the hose was bigger that what you see on marina docks, and their full flow was more than our boat's fuel lines could handle.
We got fuel from a commercial dock that normally fuels tugs and fishing boats. The facility was a linear dock with a fuel truck parked beside it. We had to be careful, as the flow was REALLY fast and we could not put it into the tank at full flow without overflowing. We talked with the guy from the truck, who was from New Jersey.
After getting fuel we set off on a short ride to Clearwater. We followed the ICW channel the whole way, which had several shallow spots, and included a detour because a sandbar had been pushed over into the channel by one of the hurricanes. Arriving in Clearwater, our first order of business was pumping out our holding tanks. The marina had self-serve pumpout, but only one was working. We tied up behind Jewel on their service dock to wait for Jewel to finish pumping out before we could empty our tank.
Louise finally got evidence of the existence of dolphins. Normally we see them coming as we travel along. They detect the boats and swim to intercept. If you are travelling at a speed they like, and make a big enough wake, they then surf in your wake. This group surfed in our bow wave for about 15 seconds, then moved to our stern wake. So far we have only seen them in the bow wake once. All the other dolphin surfing we have seen has been in our stern wake, or in the stern wakes of other boats.
Well, the crew of Jewel had a pumpout malfunction. All of a sudden, sewage shot out of the pumpout hose and sprayed effluvium all over the side of their boat! PUMPOUT BLUES! Rich and Melanie then spent a few minutes hosing down their boat, and themselves, then managed to finish pumping out and it was now our turn........
We pulled ahead to the pumpout station, and Louise read the instructions while I hooked up the hose. We managed to empty the tank, when Louise noticed that she was standing in sewage and it started to drip onto her shoes. The pumpout unit was leaking brown effluvium all over the dock. We finished getting our tank pumped, then Louise used the stern washdown hose to hose off her feet and sandals. Luckily, her sandals were plastic so they cleaned easily.
Our next challenge was docking. The slips were long, but very narrow, and the tide was running perpendicular to our slip. Despite this, we were confident we could put the boat in the slip. The tide and wind were in opposite directions, so they should have partly cancelled each other out. Our plan was to line up upstream, then back in when we lined up with the slip as the current pushed us past. On our first attempt I hit the edge of the dock when the boat didn't come in fast enough. We were going slow so no damage to the transom, and at least we missed the stern platform. We went out and re-set, and on our second attempt hit the pole beside the slip, this time our dingy took the blow. OK, enough with this, we went to plan B. I went past the slip, and backed into the current. As we approached the slip, I used the thrusters to turn us and we slid in perfectly. After getting tied up, we checked and found no damage, but chalk up another learning experience. We have docked in currents before, but not like this. The tidal currents can get pretty strong.
Turned out that we were not the only ones. Jewel also required a couple of attempts to get in, and several other boats also hit poles or piers trying to dock. After we were both set, Rich called the marina to tell them their pumpout was not working. The marina guy was frustrated, as he told Rich it had just been fixed.
Louise and Melanie went up to pay for our slips. We had agreed to stay here at least two days to recover from the crossing, but after checking the weather for the weekend, we decided we should stay put a couple of more days. The upcoming weekend was Thanksgiving, and we knew from the marina staff that this marina and others would be closed that day. When the girls got to the office, they discovered that it was cheaper to pay for a whole week than to pay day-by-day for several days, so we were now here for a week.
What an awesome place to be stuck! We went for a walk for dinner, and spent the evening in downtown Clearwater. Everything was bright and shiny and new, and lit up really well.
The town had closed off one street to cars, and local restaurants had set up patios on the street. One lane was set aside as a bike lane, while the rest of the road became patios.
The church of Scientology has a headquarters here. Several whole blocks of downtown are church buildings. The buildings were really nice, new and clean.
The marina is located in a city park. The park looked brand-new and was really well maintained.
Back on the boat, I went to bed early, while Louise stayed up to watch TV. Sometime in the evening, Eevee wanted out and Melanie came over to visit with Louise and Eevee. The three girls had some adventures out on deck. Eevee tried to jump on the gunnels again and had to be shooed off. She then went up to the flybridge. Louise and Melanie went up to check on her, and discovered that I had forgotten to close the canvas up. They closed up, while keeping an eye on Eevee. In the past, she has crawled into some hollow spaces in the flybridge seats and goes to sleep. Normally this would not be a big deal, but there are lots of dashboard wires there and we don't want her in there in case she messes up some wiring. Several months ago, I had placed objects over the access holes so she couldn't get in, but Louise wasn't sure so she and Melanie shooed Eevee out of the flybridge.
Rich and Melanie's daughter Lindsey dropped by to visit them. Lindsey was nice enough to leave her car for us for a few days.
The next day was U.S. Thanksgiving. Louise and Melanie worked together to make Thanksgiving lunch. Louise used both air fryers to cook turkeys, while Melanie made all the fixin's and baked some pies. We had Thanksgiving lunch together, then went to the beach for the afternoon. Pretty special to have our toes in the white sand at the end of November.
Louise found some turkey breasts at the grocery store, which were the perfect size to fit into the air-fryer. This gadget has been fantastic for us. Does a really good job of cooking everything.
We got to celebrate U.S. Thanksgiving with the crew of Jewel. We had a full turkey dinner for lunch with all the fixin's.
After lunch we went to Clearwater beach and Louise went swimming. What a way to celebrate Thanksgiving!
The beach here is pure white sand and goes on for miles. It is absolutely huge, and has big hotels strung all along it.
Thanksgiving day on the beach. As the sun went down over the ocean we headed back to the boats.
During the next few days, Rich and I got caught up on boat chores. I changed the oil and the impeller on the engine. I also did some cleaning in the lazarette and engine bilges. I like to keep these areas as clean as possible. It makes working in them more pleasant, and it also makes it easier to see trouble spots like leaks. For example, one of the ways I monitor the engine is to check for belt dust on the front of the engine and front of the engine compartment. I also look for oil leaks and any other sign of escaping fluids.
The day after Thanksgiving was gnarley. The winds were forecast to be heavy and didn't disappoint. We clocked steady 50 kmph winds for a few hours. I added an extra stern line and moved all our fenders over to the dockside to keep the boat protected. A really big catamaran that was parked on a linear dock nearby had lots of problems. Their fenders kept popping out and they scraped the side of their boat pretty bad on the dock. They had used a bow line as a spring line (common) which was holding their boat against the dock. This is a common mistake that boaters make, they don't realize that the ropes have a horizontal component that pulls the boat towards the dock. They also used these sideways inflatable fenders that kept popping out. They would have been better off using vertical fenders. Another big catamaran on the linear dock hosted a party during the heavy winds. This boat was about 70 feet long and crewed. They had about 30 people on board and went for a cruise during the windiest part of the wind storm.
There were lots of tow boats, police boats, and coast guard patrol boats here. Each day we were in the marina, we saw at least one police/coast guard boat moving out at high speed with lights and sirens going on some kind of rescue. Also each day I have seen at least one boat being towed.
The town was having their Christmas celebration, with the official lighting of their Christmas tree. We all bundled up in our layers and went over to the park to watch. Strange to be in Florida and see everyone wearing gloves and touques.
Choir on the stage singing Christmas carols.
Lots of tents with snacks, and they also had lots of buskers, including a fire juggler.
Extra fire. I guess she needed to keep warm in the cold. Without the flames, don't know how she managed it, it was cold.
Some toy soldiers walked around through the crowd.
Crowd at the Christmas festival. Lots of kids to see Santa.
Lots of decorations and Christmas lights in the park, and all around the towns.
The tree when they lit it up.
We spent one morning with Rich and Melanie planning our next leg southbound. Although there are lots of marinas here, they are filling up with snowbirds, and so we had to make lots of calls to find slips. As well, many marinas are private and do not accept transient dockage. One marina needed to verify that we were not liveaboards before they would give us a slip. We are liveaboards, but we are also loopers, and so they let us stay.
We have seen lots of liveaboard boats here. So far most of them are really well maintained, but there is the occasional derelict. We have also seen some sunken boats and some some damaged docks due to the recent hurricanes. So far, hurricane damage has not been a big factor for us, the marinas all seem to be operational. The only effects we have run into with respect to hurricane damage has been broken pumpouts and closed fuel docks. The staff has told us at at least one place that one of the big holdups is getting re-certified for fuel delivery. Right now we have lots of fuel, so this will not be an issue for us, but we need to keep an eye open for working pumpount facilities.
Planning our track requires lots of online searching. We need to measure distances, check tides, check weather, check facilities, all before we try to book reservations for upcoming slips. It took the four of us working together for about 2 hours to get it all worked out, but we were now set up to travel to Naples.
The heavy winds we had endured brought cold weather. We had to wear hoodies and windbreakers, as the temperatures were in single digits and winds were in the 30 kmph range. Lots of howling from the sailboat halyards and squeaking from the boat's fenders.
Everyone was bundled up after the cold front came through. We spent a day on the Jolly Trolly, a local transit system that takes people between the various beaches here. We visited Tarpon Springs, the sponge capital of the world. All the street names were in Greek, and there were Greek restaurants everywhere.
Everything here was covered in sponges.
On the way back, we stopped in Dunedin, which was full of Scottish stuff, then back to Clearwater.
Outside the patio of a pizza place in Clearwater.
That evening, we went for dinner with the crew of Into the Mystic, taking the Jolly Trolly to Clearwater Beach. The plan was to go to a special seafood restaurant, but they were closed so we went to plan B and ate at a Mexican place.
Dinner out, with everyone layered up with the cold, windy weather. Brrrrrr.
Boat name of the day: Boatox
