Last Tuesday evening we stopped by the Boca Ciega Yacht Club for a little bit. There were some folks getting the Catalina’s ready to go out into the bay.

Getting the Catalina's ready to go

The boats are stored on trailers and need to be hoisted into the channel. The task takes several people to accomplish, but is fairly easy to do. The boats are easily readied and out into the bay they go.

Dropping a couple of red buoys quickly sets up a race course. There is no official judges standing by, just some of the club folks having a great time, most of them anyhow.

There always has to be someone vying for special attention in every event I suppose… this one being not much different.

I don’t want to mention any names so Bill and Belinda shall be hereafter referred to as: The Swimmers.

Have you ever been preparing to do something and there is this nagging little voice that get’s you to thinking, ‘I shouldn’t be doing this, I should just go home?’

Using the hoist to drop another in the water.

When you try 3 or 4 times to push away from the dock in a little sailboat and the wind just keeps pushing you back against the dock… and all the other boats just glide away easily~ there is that little voice.

So the ‘Swimmers’ finally push off of the dock and get the little boat heading into the bay. We (Sheree and I) reposition ourselves to take some photos of the ‘race’.

We see why that little nagging voice should not be ignored in one of the videos below. For us Floridian’s it’s no big deal, when the water is in the 80′s. The water is only in the 60′s which is absolutely frigid for most of us. Bill, Belinda, and son, (I mean the Swimmers) are all recently from N.Y. so I would surmise that this was not as cold as I am imagining. (see the last YouTube video)

I shall have to wait for the full story. Until then, enjoy the videos.

Ahoy,

Larry

The Swimmers try again to get away from the dock!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThgIdaD3eD4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vBwmu9WGbc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5w-ijwulCk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCPicbmLzXE

Wasting an entire day is truly becoming an art form for me.  It’s not for everybody.  My standards of a normal day have changed over the years.  

So you ask, just what is normal?  Well… this day it was being totally worthless at being a productive human being.  I was previously a success at fixing the wind generator a couple of days ago, so today will be different.  The much delayed part from ‘eMarine Systems’ had finally arrived, the fix was easy.  I simply had to have the correct part.  I’d fixed a few other things as well, but that will be in a later blog entry.  This one is about being worthless on a sailboat…

The sun rises to an empty schedule.  Nothing on the calendar but the day and date.  Were it not for the miracle of the personal computer, I would not even know that much information most of the time.  But, since I’m part of the modern electronic world, allow me to share the day’s events.

Watch the sunrise. Drink coffee.

Yep, that about sums it up.  Next thing you know it’s around noon.  We are anchored off the beach in Gulfport Florida, one of my favorite places on the west coast.  The anchor is holding very well, the bay is reasonably calm, and the pace is slow.

We decide to go for a bit of a dinghy ride and exploring a little bit.  It’s always nice to go poking about in a little rubber boat with an outboard.  There is very little work involved and if you hit something, you bounce off without too much damage.  

We find the entrance to Clam Bayou a bit east of the Gulfport Pier.  This is a piece of natural Florida that has managed to survive the urban sprawl along the waterfront. Entering the Bayou we are greeted with a wide assortment of waterfowl relaxing about as much as we are.  Fish are schooling ahead of the boat as we push deeper into the mangroves.

The water is getting shallower as we progress which is limiting our explorations.  This is a perfect place for a canoe or kayak.  One of the water trails is marked for human powered boats only, no internal combustion engines allowed.  We explore the areas that we can get to with our dinghy and enjoy the serenity once I kill the engine.  If you own a kayak, this trail is just what you are looking for.

Entering Boca Ciega bay once again as we continue around the bay back into civilization.  The weather appears like it will be changing in the next day or so.  High clouds are forming some impressive overhead scenes which is usually a sign of another front on the way.  

So we head back to the boat in time to enjoy the evening activities.

Watch the sunset. Enjoy a cocktail.

Yeah, life on a boat…

Links you might enjoy:

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/sites/bocaciega-pinellas/

http://www.stpete.org/parks/clambayou.asp

N 27 44.5 W 82 41.4

The Gulfport Pier is on the lower left, with Clam Bayou being the nice green area. Click on the picture for a little closer view.