Happy New Year! We had a wonderful time at home for the holidays with our family and friends. We brought lots of things back with us for the boat, including some fender covers that Heather made while we were home. We flew into Tampa, minus one checked bag, and rented a car to drive to Terry and Pauline's. Reporting the lost bag took a while on top of our flight being late, so it was 7:30 PM before we arrived. However, we were still treated to their special "welcome" dinner with shrimp on the Teppanyaki grill and sugar steaks on the BBQ. Yummy! We had a very quick hot tub in the rain as the thunder and lightening arrived too soon. In the light of the next day we admired the detailing and wax job that was done on our boat while we were away. Then we returned the rental and went to Total Wine. We need a store like Total Wine in Canada - impressive! We won't have to buy wine for a while! We stopped to get groceries on the way back so we were well provisioned. Our suitcase was delivered after we got back from our errands and everything inside was wet! It must have sat on the runway in Toronto in the rain - for a long time! That meant for a lot of laundry! We went to Harry's Continental Kitchen for dinner as a thank you to Terry and Pauline.
Terry and Pauline had planned a dinner with friends from our home town and asked us not to leave until afterwards, so we were honoured to stay. Pauline was doing InstaCart to get some items for the meal so, with her guidance, Heather did her first InstaCart order. We had heard of many Loopers who were using it so it seemed like a good time to learn. It was convenient, but expensive, however, if you have to factor a taxi into the cost of your groceries, it makes up for it. Cam had to work a lot that day but we managed to squeeze a lot of boat preparation in between work for departure the next day. Then the company arrived including Ed, the former owner of Champion Bicycles, and his daughter Victoria, who teaches at our children's former high school; and also Karen and Mark with their son, Seth, all from our home town. It was a bit loud, but a fun night.
Off to Sarasota
We worked hard all morning to get the boat ready for departure. When we were ready, the tide was still too low for departure so we had lunch and fussed on the boat until about 1:30 PM. We said a fond farewell to Terry and Pauline and we were off.
The red tide was still bad as Heather was coughing quite a bit with burning eyes and Cam could feel it in his throat too - so masks went on again. Our travels were pretty good and we decided to throttle up to check the new water pump on the starboard engine. Unfortunately, when Cam checked the engine, he found a lot of oil, so we throttled back and called Diego, the mechanic from Mantis Marine. On top of the engine issue, we found that the trim tabs weren’t behaving. Trim tabs help manage the angle of the boat in the water and help it to get up on plane and we were not able to get up on plane. Diego came to the marina a couple of hours after we arrived and Cam brought him to our boat on the dingy. That was at 6 PM on a Saturday! Unfortunately, our after market water pump was a slightly different shape so it didn't fit that well. The tight fit was causing a leak in the oil seal. Diego ordered us a new pump and seal. Then he checked on our trim tabs. We think that there was some barnacle growth that messed them up, but it was also possible that the solenoids were starting to fail. We would need to hire a diver to have a look. Apparently, we need to move the trim tabs regularly, even when we aren't using the boat, or the barnacles set up home and restrict the movement of the tabs. We're also ordering some spare solenoids to be on the safe side.
The bottom line was that we would have to go back to Terry and Pauline's in Anna Maria to wait for the parts and have the work done there. We were glad to have the option to go back, but disappointed that we were missing our crossing window to the Keys. We hoped there would be another window that would work for us once the boat was fixed.
Back to Anna Maria
We enjoyed a slow start to our morning as we had to plan a mid-afternoon arrival in Anna Maria for the higher tide. We had a big breakfast and enjoyed tea and coffee on the deck. The boats like to exit and enter the marina at speed so we were getting waked regularly which was uncomfortable. While we waited, we heard from a friend that he had seen us on a mooring ball and he asked how we got tied up to it. Since we had time to spare while we waited for the tide, we decided to make a quick video on How to Pick Up a Mooring Ball to help our friends and others who might need to know.
We departed around 11 AM and had a fairly easy run back. There was a lot of traffic at the Cortez Bridge which was challenging since we needed to cross under the bridge at the middle of the span where there was more head room available. The traffic finally eased a bit and we managed to get through. Then we saw our friends on Selah Way and hailed them on the the VHF radio. They were about to cross their wake for the second time on the other side of the Cortez bridge to earn their Platinum flag so we congratulated them early! We met them on the rivers where they delivered home made gluten free cookies to us in a lock. Yummy!
The red tide was even worse that day. Cam was sneezing and Heather was coughing and we had to wear the masks again. We arrived at Terry and Pauline's about 2 PM, got all tied up and washed the boat off, with coaching from them as salt water experts! Salt is hard on the boat and it doesn’t take long for little rust spots to show up if you don't stay on top of it.
The new pump came in on Tuesday and Diego came in on Thursday to install it. He also fixed the squealling sound on our dinghy engine. The problem with the dinghy turned out to be a loose bolt on the propeller. We took Sea Clef out on a test run with Diego and got the "all clear" with instructions to check the cables after 8 hours of running.
There were significant winds coming so we stayed on at Anna Maria and did lots of things while we waited for our next travel window. With access to a car, we could do a lot more in the broader area. On Mondays, the art gallery at Ringling has free admission. We enjoyed the older art much more than the contemporary art. We ran into Laura and Jeff from Water Witch while we were there and had a nice visit. It surprised our friends that we would run into someone we knew there, but that is the nature of the social life on the Great Loop. Then we walked around the gardens and the outside of the Ca’ d’Zan house. We decided that we would have to get back to see the Circus Museum when we made it back to Sarasota with our boat.
It was a beautiful place to be stuck and we enjoyed our time while we waited. Heather walked to the beach one day, and then we both walked another day. Heather and Pauline went out to run a bunch of errands, including buying stone crab claws for an appetizer later that night. They went to a store called Driftwood that had lots of art for the boat. Heather shopped with Cam on the phone and bought three little turtles and a large crab. Once we figured out how to securely mount them, we went out again later in the week, this time with Cam, and got a larger turtle with three more small ones, a seahorse, metal birds to hang over the main salon, and metal fish for the stairwell to the aft cabin. Everything looks very homey now. Pauline and Heather walked the Robinson Preserve, and Cam, Heather and Pauline walked at the DeSoto National Memorial in Bradenton. There are lots of great walks in the area that Pauline likes to take with Wynston. We even got to go on a sunset cruise on Terry and Pauline's boat, while some of their friends and neighbours did the same. There were about a half dozen boats out enjoying the sunset that night.
We went out for dinner to Pier 22 in Bradenton on Thursday. Friday we had fish tacos at the house, and then Saturday we were out to dinner at their friends' house. We really enjoyed David and Donna, and their dogs, and they offered to come by before we left the next day with some fishing gear! It was departure day and once again, we had to wait until at least 1 PM for a high enough tide to leave. It was 10C when we got up and the boat felt quite cold! We did all our prep and moved back from the house to the boat. Heather and Pauline got one last walk in with Wynston, while Cam finished prepping. David and Donna came by at 11 AM as promised. While the ladies visited, David helped Cam rig up a number of fishing lures, and he gave us an extra rod, and a gaff. We were all set to drop a line in the water as soon as the opportunity arose. We said goodbye to David and Donna, had some lunch and prepped to leave. We said farewell to Terry and Pauline, promising to see them Monday for dinner in Sarasota. How were they not sick of us?!
Back to Sarasota
Our run to Sarasota was uneventful, thankfully! It was nice recognizing the Ringling Ca’ d’Zan house from the water as we approached. We were happy to have floating docks, which makes tying up easier in tides. After relaxing for a bit, we set ourselves up to try and see the Falcon Heavy rocket, USSF-67 mission by Space X, take off.
We followed it online and were pretty excited to see it appear in the eastern sky. We saw it soar through the sky, drop its two booster rockets, start looking like a jelly fish, and then we saw the booster rockets firing to adjust their course as they returned to earth. It was very cool!
On Monday, we had a diver come to scrape the barnacles out of our thrusters, off our trim tabs, and off our through-hull fittings. Then we went to Ringling's again so we could go to the Circus museum. The most amazing part of that was a scale model of the circus. It's quite large and you walk around it to see the model depicting the circus unloading at the railway, the parade advertising the circus, the team meal tents and setup area, the medical team and tents, and the leather shop and shoeing area for the animals. The big top tent area was amazing! The detail outside of the circus even included the power wires of the town. We enjoyed the history of the circus, including learning that in 1859 Jules Leotard performed the first flying trapeze, giving his name to the wardrobe item that we call leotards. We also took turns balancing on horseback, and riding in clown cars. We still had time so we took in more of the art museum. We returned to the marina and stopped again to take some photos of the Unconditional Surrender statue with the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square after WWII.
That evening, we planned to meet Looper friends, Kathy and Richard, from the boat See Life. We went to their condo for pre-dinner drinks where we enjoyed their sunset view over the harbour. Then we headed down to Owen's Fish Camp where we hoped to have dinner but we were told it was a two hour wait so we headed to Boca just as Terry and Pauline arrived. The six of us got along great and had a great evening. We went back to their condo briefly afterwards for a nightcap. It turned out that they both know Richard and Kathy's upstairs neighbours. It truly is a small world. We left their condo and said a final good bye and thank you to Terry and Pauline before we headed back to our boat. With the delays due to our engine issues and weather conditions, we cancelled our plans to go to the Keys. Tomorrow's destination will be Pelican Bay and then on toward the Okeechobee Waterway.
Enjoy our photos below. If you click on a photo, they will open in a slide show view. Some of this section of our travels is covered in our video Episode 23.
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