our last Blog entry for a while. Gulfport to Cortez....

It appears we are in for a tropical storm.  They are saying our water is going to get sucked out to sea for this one.   We shall see.   Prepared for a couple of days hunkered down in the boat.   Fortunately in a marina.  

Today we leave Gulfport at low tide and traversed Boca Ciega bay on the way to the bridge that would take us to Tampa Bay.  Or so we thought.  As I approached the bridge I thought 'that looks kinda low' and looked up the bridge on the charts.   19ft fixed bridge at high tide.   Our boat measures 19ft 11inches above the water - in any tide.  
Now the tide was 6inches above low so in theory we had 18 inches before it reached high tide.  We could, in theory, inch under the bridge with antennas down.   But we had 2ft waves.   There goes the 18inches.   Too close to call.   Turn around, cross the bay again, head east and then back south again to go under another fixed bridge.  68ft.
 Ok, no problem.  But that means an extra hour crossing Tampa Bay in 25 knot winds.   Joy.  And beam seas. (waves from the side, for those that don't know what that is - the kind that rock the boat)...   Either way we had to cross. Storm coming and our slip for the next 45 days is... Over there.   
Ocean waves and Lake Michigan waves are not the same.  Salty water is softer.  The intervals are larger.   The spray is - salty.  And the water carries the boat a little better since it is more dense.   

Today we had a dolphin that wanted to do acrobatics join us.   Impossible to get a photo of him but he jumped straight up out of the water at least 8-10ft and then back down straight where he exited.  The first time he did it I was a bit shocked.  He was literally at the level of my helm on the 2nd deck.  Pretty cool.   

Then we got waves.  No photos as it was a bit sporty out there.   We got across the 'big' water in 45 minutes and within two hours arrived at our dock for the upcoming stay. 
We are docked at the Seafood Shack in Cortez right by the bridge to Anna Maria Island (Bradenton Beach)  We will be here until the beginning of February.  (So there won't be blogs)

We are headed home to Michigan in a week for Christmas with family.  Then back here for New Year's and a month in one place ...  We have friends here within walking distance (and several a short drive away) so we will have things to do and people to see ... 

Until we head further south...   Out for now. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Youngs Point ON to Fenelon Falls ON

Image
We left Youngs Point lock wall this morning about 8am with two hours of cruising to get to our first lock.   What a beautiful day.   We had two lakes to cross.  Clear Lake (which is clear)...   And Stoney Lake which is.... Granite.  The beaches are done and the navigation is critical.  It's a common thing to have solid granite just a few inches below the surface on both sides of the boat just 10-20 feet away.  As long as we are in the designated channel it's fine....   But prop repair and replacement is a big business here... Still... Driving past this kind of scenery all day would never get old... (Until it froze).  Eventually we journeyed through four locks today... And up to a fifth.    Lock 28, 30, 31, 32... And sitting just under lock 33.   Yes we are aware 29 is missing.  28 and 29 used to be a set of two (a flight lock) but in the 1960s they automated it (hydraulic controls rathe...
Read more

Fenelon Falls ON to Kirkfield Lock

Image
We are officially nowhere.   We had a pretty short trip today.   We left Fenelon Falls when the lock crew showed up at 10am and could put us through.... But ended up stuck there for a while because the lock (which is automated) was blowing circuit breakers and wouldn't open for the lock master.    As we exited the lock we saw the rocks on the left.  Neatly stacked by humans to draw attention to the massive shelf of rock just below the surface and just off the channel. Without those little stacks it would be easily possible to run into that sheer rock cliff under the surface.  After a while she figured out how to get it to open and we were able to break free and head to our second lock of the day.   This one was tiny and an easy pass.    They informed us, however, that our next lock was the Kirkfield Lift lock and it's on a maintenance day meaning they were not taking any traffic until 1pm so we might as well go slow...
Read more

Ludington MI to Grand Haven MI - and Gold Looper Status!

Image
We are back at North Shore Marina!   The place we started and the place our boat calls home.  We have a new slip (next to where we were last year) and we have a port tie which is best for our boat.   How we tie up here will take some getting used to... We left Ludington today and it was a bit breezy (15-20 knot winds).  It was our best day to get home in the next five though so we went.   You can't see it but the waves were coming up high enough to splash us all the way on the top deck.   Lumpy for the first 30 miles.  Until we reached silver lake sand dunes.  Then we could turn about 30 degrees and quarter the waves a little.  The white caps died down also.  It was kind of foggy today so we couldn't see very far.  More of a haze as it didn't affect navigation but made pictures difficult.  That's the light house at Little Sab...
Read more