The day started out sunny and not quite as cool as the previous day. We are headed to The Club at Treasure Island today and the winds are also down today. The wind has been pretty strong for the time we have been in Tarpon Springs.
We had a good time in Tarpon Springs and had docktails with the couple on the boat next to us last evening. The boat is a trawler named Osprey that they bought in Bradenton Florida. They are within about 80 miles of crossing their wake and completing the Loop. Patti and Geoff live in Ashland Oregon and are a delightful couple. We traded good stories about our adventures on the Loop and had a good docktails time.
Osprey pulled out before us but they travel slower than we do so we ended up passing them on the Anclote River on our way to the ICW. This is a pretty long distance to get from tarpon Springs to the ICW, Probably 4+ miles and a good portion at no wake speed.
The wind that there was out of the Northeast and put up a small chop on the ICW. The first 15 miles of this section of the ICW is really a large bay with several outer islands that do provide some protection from the Gulf.
Being Saturday there were a lot of boaters on the water and none of them go slow unless they are in a no wake zone and even then it is questionable what constitutes no wake.
the sun was nice and was with us most of the way. We went thru Dunedin and the Clearwater area. Plenty of development and high rises in the Clearwater Beach area. As we got further South the ICW narrows down to more of a wide river than the large bay. All the bridges we passed we were able to go under without having to request an opening. They were pretty busy today anyway with lots of sailboats and large cruisers around.
We did see the MetLife Blimp today. It was heading south so I thought maybe it was going to Tampa Bay for a football game tomorrow. I guess we will need to watch TV tomorrow to find out.
We did see a pirate ship on the ICW. It was on the south side of Clearwater and some spent a lot of time and effort to make it look like a real pirate ship although I don’t think they painted them, at least not with red trim.
We only needed to travel a little less than 40 miles today so it was an easy day, We are tied up at the Club at Treasure Island at the same dock as last year. We had a nice dinner in the Clubhouse last night and we will be here for another day before heading south.