The Travels of "Fruition": Back to St Pete

Before leaving Ft Myers, we searched for
our Pot o' Gold

Only this time, we’re at the Municipal Marina right downtown.

We made a 3-day trip from Ft Myers to St Pete, still planning on thunderstorms each afternoon. We traveled only 50-60 miles each day, so we could be anchored for the night by the time the T-storms passed by. But our luck held, and we didn’t even get a free boat wash the entire trip.

click to enlarge

We anchored the first night at Englewood Beach – our third time to anchor there. It’s a nice protected spot, but mainly it fits nicely into our travel route. And the sand bottom allows us to set the anchor well for the night, yet raise it easily the next morning, and the anchor comes up nice & clean.

The main feature of our trip was the constant presence of dolphins next to our boat. They must really like our 10 mph travel speed. At times, we had dolphins on both sides of our boat, riding our wake, jumping high & smacking down into the water, swimming on their side looking up at us, and entertaining the Admiral for miles and miles. We got great pictures.

Look closely and you can see the splash from one dolphin
with its tail still our of the water. Another one is just starting
to jump out of the water.

An osprey sitting on the "high ground"

Entering Tampa Bay, your hard-earned tax dollars are
at work. USCG replacing a piling to mark the channel of
the Intracoastal Waterway

The second night we anchored in the Manatee River next to Bradenton, a place where we had anchored 3 years ago. The weather was nice, so we inflated a swimming ring, tied it to the boat (so the tidal current wouldn’t take us to China) & jumped in to the 86 degree water to “cool off”. It must be summertime in Florida.

Sunshine Skyway looks a lot like the bridge
over Mackinac Straits in Michigan

At a roof top restaurant in St Pete, we see the
approaching rain squall over Tampa Bay

Our 3^rd travel day was a short trip under the Sunshine Skyway, up Tampa Bay to the City Marina in St Petersburg. Sue lived in St Pete when she was a teenager, and back then, the city was called “The land of the newly-wed and the living dead” and “God’s waiting room”. The downtown area has been totally re-vitalized to the point that Sue almost doesn’t recognize anything. The water front looks great, there are lots of green spaces downtown & the shops and restaurants cater to the locals as well as the tourists. During the entire month of September, they’re celebrating an Arts & Culture Festival, so we’re checking out some art museums & theater shows. This meek & humble Deck Ape will be so “cultured” that the Admiral won’t recognize me!

Next to the Fine Arts Museum, a huge tree that's even
older than I am!

On a tour of the historic Vinoy Hotel in St Pete,
we see something strange hanging on the wall.
Never did figure out what the heck this was!

Built in 1925, the Vinoy Hotel has been a landmark in
downtown St Pete.

Next to the Museum of Fine Arts, two huge banyan trees
shade the street. Sue is holding some new tree roots
growing DOWN to the ground.

So now we take a break from all our fun to fly to Ohio for a wedding & to meet with the attorney to begin probate of Sue’s uncle’s estate. When we return next week, we’ll provision the boat & start looking for a weather window to make a 15-hour Gulf of Mexico crossing of the “Big Bend” part of Florida.