Tuesday June 11

This is how a calm, flat Gulf of Mexico looks!
(We had never seen it before.  We've always
had 15-20 mph winds)

We wake to that un-Godly thing called an alarm clock, so we can get underway around 0700 (that's 7 AM for you USMC-types).  We exit Tampa Bay back into the Gulf of Mexico because we want to make good time on the "outside" down to Venice, rather than the slow, narrow GICW.  The wind was initially 10-15 mph, but quickly died down to 5 mph  The beautiful clear turquoise water was so flat, we didn't know that the Gulf could be so calm.

We use the autopilot at the helm, and really enjoy the 4-hour trip south to Venice.  The inlet at Venice is very easy - don't have to worry about swift outgoing tides and opposing onshore winds.  We join up immediately to the GICW and continue heading south.

A point that I found interesting, is my finding old navigation charts left on the boat when we bought it from previous owners.  I found several charts for this area with marinas & routes marked on the charts by previous owners.  It means that our boat has been in these waters before!  We were told by the immediate past owners that one of the first owners took this boat around America's Great Loop!  It's been in places that we haven't.......maybe we'll just hit the autopilot & let the boat go by itself!

Did I mention that the ICW is narrow & shallow??
When the birds are standing in the water.....
DON'T GO THERE!

As we travel the ICW, we pass under quite a few bridges (of course we go UNDER them, not OVER them), and refer to the charts or guidebooks to determine our clearance.  The problem we've found is that the charted height is not always what we actually have.  So, Sue drives slowly towards the bridge while I climb out to the dinghy deck, sight along the highest part of our boat, and give Sue the OK.  One bridge had such little clearance that I could have touched the bottom of the bridge!



What did we learn about squall lines in our USPS
Weather Class, kids?

A special note for our Lynchburg TN Boating Buddies........as the ICW passes south of Venice, it becomes a narrow man-made canal.  We're running just under 10 mph (with a tail current).  On the bicycle path right next to the canal, two cyclists are passing us!!!  We really qualified today to be called a "crawler"!

We anchor early by Englewood Beach for the night.  We're both hot from the heat, so we turn on the genset and air conditioning right away (ain't cruising tough?).  We begin to hear thunder in the distance & soon see the squall line coming our way.  We let out some more scope on the anchor & then get hit with 30G40 mph winds.  All the bad stuff went to our west, but it sure made our evening interesting!!

Hoping for great weather the rest of the week, since tomorrow we take a short ride to Cayo Costa, one of the best anchorages anywhere.