Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Jan. 20-24, 2017 St. Petersburg, FL is our home for nearly a week.




Mid-winter weather in Florida has a history of being unsettled. It was the reason for us to wait 11 days to make the crossing of Florida’s Big Bend and it’s keeping us in the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina for close to a week. “The Blow” came through Sunday afternoon. Just north of us were tornado swirls and just south of us were water spouts. We got off much easier. The thunder rolled and lightning flashed, revealing cloud layers scuttling by at 50-60 mph. We kept an eye on the lines of the nearby unattended boats, prepared to make them more secure, but it was not necessary. We all rode out the storm without incident.


On Saturday, the day before the storm, the Demens Landing Park next to our dock was the gathering site for the Women’s March for Social Justice... a reaction to Donald Trump becoming the 45th president. 20,000 participants represented females of all ages and a goodly number of supportive males of all ages. Their handmade signs covered every topic imaginable that concern women of today.  Wally and I visited the Farmer’s Market across the street early in the day. We selected freshly picked strawberries, corn in the husk, string beans, baby potatoes and home-baked bread. After stowing our purchasing in the boat, we returned to the park. As observers of the march preparations, we were very impressed by how enthusiastic, empowered, yet orderly the marchers were. The evening news reported that groups like this one had demonstrated their hopes for a better future all over the country and even world-wide. Amazing! 








Not since we first purchased SUMMERTIME on Punta Gorda Isles 3 years ago have any of our family members been on board our boat. That changed yesterday when Wally’s cousin Vesta and her husband Steve came for a tour. A downpour caught us all unawares as we were strolling down the dock together, so we had to put my clothes dryer to work as soon as they came aboard. Back in dry clothes, we walked to a nearby bistro and enjoyed a delicious lunch together. What a nice visit! Vesta and Steve are Maine folks spending their second winter as renters in the Largo condo complex that Wally’s mother and step-father had been in for 30+ years. The Florida lifestyle suits these newcomers just fine, too.






Our Kadey-Krogen Manatee attracts the attention of passers-by wherever we go. Last week in Gulfport, FL it was a delightful man who had been on the design team for this boat back in the late ’70’s and early ’80’s. This week it was another trawler owner. After asking a series of questions about our satisfaction with SUMMERTIME, he moved on, but returned with his father. Both were eager to accept the offer of a tour that I had made earlier. What a sweet father-son duo they were. He is now on the search for a Manatee of his own!

It has been a pleasant addition to our stay in St. Petersburg to have the Albert Whitted Airport with it’s Control Tower just 500 yards off our stern. Using our smart phone to pick up the controller’s and pilot’s transmissions, Wally, a pilot for many years, sits up on our upper deck and watches the various planes and helicoptors take off and land. As the wind picked up on Saturday, we both watched a banner-towing plane make 4 passes of the field before his hooks grasped the tow lines and hauled a huge banner into the blue. That’s tricky business. We also enjoyed a tasty lunch at The Hangar Restaurant on the upper deck of the airport terminal building. Of course, viewing air traffic while eating was the most popular pasttime for the dining crowd.




Oh, yes,  downtown St. Petersburg is “Artists Central”... the famous and the up-and-coming hob-nob together. Reminders that creative spirits are at work bloom everywhere!  








Created by Darcy O Campbell

Friday, January 20, 2017

January 19, 2017 We become Gold Loopers in St Petersburg, Florida

SUMMERTIME crossed her wake this morning in St Petersburg Fl. We had a great year cruising... meeting great people and seeing great places. We will be spending the next 2 months in Ft Myers. What is next? Who knows! But we are certain we will be doing it aboard SUMMERTIME.

For those who are interested in facts, here are a few:
Total Miles------------5500 Travel days------------156
Marina Stays----------243
Nights on Anchor------44
Nights on Ball----------10
Nights on Walls--------28

Total Gallons of fuel----1196
Total Engine Hours-----724
Gallons/hour------------1.65

Monday, January 16, 2017

Jan. 6-16, 2017 Waiting for a weather-window, then making “The Crossing”.






We waited 11 days for a weather-window that would allow us to safely make the crossing from Florida’s Panhandle to the West Coast. Criteria: winds no higher than 10 mph; waves no greater than 2 feet. We spent 4 days in Panama City Beach, 3 days in Port St. Joe and 2 days in Apalachicola. Even though we spent the fewest days in Apalachicola, it was the most endearing of the three stops. Its the one where we took the most pictures... oysters, shrimp boats, historical homes and friendly townspeople. On Fri. Jan 13, just as we were settling into Apalachicola for another week of waiting, Eddy’s Weather Wag gave us the go-ahead we needed to cross on Saturday and Sunday, Jan 14 and 15. With full fuel and water tanks and an empy black water tank, SUMMERTIME was ready to hit the high seas. We began to gather all the creature comforts we needed to carry us through the 24 hour crossing: a comforter and pillows, a variety of finger foods, bottles of water and an audio book up in the pilot house. Would we find any other 8 mph Loopers to make the crossing with us? Four cruisers arrived in town on Friday. We enjoyed our reunion with VALENTINE AND REVEILLE,  but our hopes for having company through the night were dashed. They were mostly faster boats, 12-15 mph, and all were headed for Crystal River, FL... not Tarpin Springs. Oh well, alone again.


























We departed Apalachicola at 9:30 Sat. morning. Our 24 hour trip would put us on the West Coast well after sunrise so we could clearly see the crab pots in the water. Wrapping pot warp around our propeller could really spoil an otherwise pleasant cruise! We could have entered The Gulf through Government Cut, but instead we cruised inside St. George Island to Carrabelle’s Dog Island. After checking the anchorage there for any Looper boats about to make the crossing... there were none...(deep sigh) we made our way out to Marker #2. It was now 1:30 pm. Here we put the auto pilot on a 137 degree course heading for Marker #4 150 miles away. There would be no other markers in the water to guide us! We were surprised to find ourselves in 70-80 feet of water... Florida waters are notably shallow along the West Coast. Every once in a while a pod of 6-8 dolphins would joyfully play along our bow, able to maintain our 7-8 mph speed for a few minutes. From nightfall at 7 pm until midnight the seas continued to be smooth, the winds light. By 12:30 the seas had freshened up a bit with waves heights 2-4 feet and winds 10-15 mph. Coming from the east, the waves smacked SUMMERTIME against her beam, causing us to rock and roll until about 5 am. We took one-hour watches, Wally choosing the even hours, me the odd hours. It was amazing that we each woke up just as our hour of sleep was ending... must be all those one hour naps we’ve come to enjoy each afternoon! Sirius radio kept us company (’70’s on 7) long after our phone service ended about 20 miles off shore. Nicholas Sparks’ The Long Ride was precious with Ira, Ruth, Sophia and Luke intertwining their stories. 
Apalachicola River departing to Dog Island


Crossing the Gulf of Mexico

Sunset on the gulf

Radar and Chart Plotter keeping us company through the night

Moonrise at 9:00....finally some light



Dredge Pipe on the move

Enjoying a well earned nap

From the folks at the Tarpin Springs Marina, our intended destination, we learned that their harbor was too shallow to enter until high tide at 2 pm. Since it was barely 9:30 am, we decided to move on down the coast to the deeper harbor at Clearwater Beach, adding another 3 hours to our already exhausting 24 hour trip. Just as our spirits needed lifting, dolphins came careening in from all quarters. At least a dozen gathered along our bow, cavorting with each other and SUMMERTIME for at least 10 minutes before veering away. What a welcoming treat! 


As we strolled along Clearwater’s sugar-white strand of sand, we chanced to chat with a young Asian couple. Their 5 month-old baby was having his first beach day. “When we dipped his feet in the water, he cried,” his mom confided. “My husband did, too,” I replied with a smile. We all chuckled. The water certainly did have a chill that was not inviting many partakers.








The Albin 36 trawler in the slip beside us has a hailing port of Waterville, Maine. It didn’t take us long to discover that the three brothers on board once owned a supermarket chain with a store in my hometown of Lincoln. “You mean Giguere’s”. Yes, indeed. It was my family’s major food store in the ’60’s and ’70’s... small world!  


The Ellis family "Wall of Fame"