Marker 1 Marina Dunedin 11/11/17-12/11/17

We had lunch at Frenchie's Outpost

Frenchie's.  Right across from the Marina

Well it's been a while.  We have very much enjoyed our month off at Marker 1 and now its time to move on.  We unloaded the motorcycle when we arrived and used it extensively to explore the area and also to scout out our next marina.  About three weeks ago we rode down to the Bradenton/Sarasota area and visited 8-9 different marinas. One of them was Riviera Dunes where the new manager Bill Chamberlain was the manager at St Johns Yacht Harbor where we were living for 2 years prior to our departure in April.  It was good to see Bill and he gave us a nice tour of the facilities but there were no available slips with the exception of one slip being rented by its owner.  Bill's body language and lack of kind words for the slip owner pretty much warned us off of this slip but he did make recommendations for other marinas for us to look at.  We finally settled on Galati Yachts Sales Marina on Anna Maria Island and booked from 12-15-1/15/18.  It is a very nice marina, more orientated to yacht sales and a big yard working on many million dollar yachts.  The slip we took is one of the furthest away from the marina and restaurant and will be very quite.  It backs onto an island of mangroves and has nice afternoon shade.

There is Debbie checking out the slip at Galati

We have had a few visitors stop by or come to stay.   Wendy and her sister Susan for a tour of the Dunedin Farmers Market and lunch at Ozona Blue Grill.  We like the Ozona Blue so much we had dinner there 4 times over the month.

Duniden Market

There was a great produce stand at the market

Sue, Wendy Debbie and I at Ozona Blue Grill

Captain and crew

Lois came and joined us for a week and Debbie rented a car for the week to take the two of them off to see the sights. Their first stop was to Tarpon Springs which is just a few miles north of Marker 1.
The next day they went to St Petersburg to see the Chihuly Exhibit. Dale Chihuly is an artist who creates beautiful pieces in blown glass.  His most famous work is the ceiling at the Billagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

Dale Chihuly and the ceiling

Debbie next to one of Chihuly's creations

Stairway going up to the art gallery

The following day they went back to St Petersburg and went to the Dali Museum.

Dali's Hallucinogenic Toreador

The three of us when out to a great dinner.

Back to Ozona Blue for dinner with Lois

We were docked at Marker 1 when they had the annual Dunedin Christmas boat parade.  The marina served free brats and beer to all and there were some great costumes to go along with the lite up boats.

Free Beer and brats

Lots to see and watch.  One boat even had a live band performing on the foredeck.

Ho ho ho

I can't say we did much in the way of boat cleaning but we did have to have a compressor changed on one of the AC units and also made modifications to the air returns on two of the AC units.  Supposedly there was too much restriction which caused the compressor to fail prematurely (just about one year).  I worked on the aft sliding door and one of the wing doors where we had been getting water in when it rained.  The leaking has stopped and now I need to change out some paneling to get it back to ship shape.  It only took two years to find the leaks!!  Debbie has been hard at work needle pointing a throw cushion.

Now she is working on filling in all of the white area with a green background and then sew it up as a cushion cover.  She has so much more patience than I do.

I watched with admiration when a diver and his assistant showed up with these huge props one day.  The diver "Squid" an ex Navy Seal got in the water after hanging the two props in the water and manhandled the props into position and onto the shafts by himself., with a combination of muscle and come alongs.

A 37" 7 blade propeller being reinstalled on a big new Hatteras 

Squid is behind the helper.  This was our view for the last month.

Abby went to the poodle parlor and is sporting her new Christmas collar

Who knew but there is a Beatles museum in Dunedin that Lois and Debbie visited.  And its free

Beatles Museum

Marker 1 is located on the Dunedin Causeway leading over to Honeymoon Island State park.  Either Debbie or I would take Abby twice a day for a walk or in my case a bicycle ride to the beach along the Causeway.  Abby always got way more compliments than I did! Lots of runners and cyclists everyday.  People would go in the evening to watch the sunsets.

Low tide on the causeway

We met Mike and Rosie from Swingset one day as they drove through the marina in their dingy.  They had one of the best blogs on the loop that I ever read and I will share a link to it and an excerpt from one of my favorite posts they made. When I asked if they were Mike and Rosie they came over and it was weird because I felt like I knew them even though we had never met.  Anyways they were very gracious and chatted for a while.  Check out their blog at  http://swingsetonthehook.blogspot.com/   Mike is a great story teller

Arrived at Marker 1 Marina 11/10/17

We left the anchorage early, around 7:00 because the tide was falling and the water depth coming into the anchorage was pretty skinny last night.  I didn't want to spend a lot of time hunting an exit path.  We followed the ICW which is a very narrow channel with about 6' of water in these parts south to Dunedin and the Honeymoon Island Bridge which we needed to have open so we could pass.  We pulled into the Marker 1 Marina around 9:00 AM and got a pump out and then moved to our dock. We had some boat chores to do and then dropped the motorcycle down.  Caitlin the manager took a photo of Abby and posted it on the Marina's Facebook page.

  I had an order at West Marine that I needed to pick up but the truck doesn't come in until 3:00 so they figured they would have my order by 4:00. After lunch we rode down and checked out the Dunedin downtown area and found some places that had been recommended to us by Eddy of Eddy's Weather Wag.  He does a daily report on the  Gulf crossing conditions between Carrabelle and Tarpon Springs for the Loopers.  We found where the Farmers Market is held, a BBQ place called Eli's which is only open three days a week and only has three things on the menu.  Supposedly very good and an institution in these parts.  There was also Jensen Brothers Fish market which we drove past and the Dunedin Brewery.  I think Dunedin has more than 10 breweries and also has distilleries.  Definitely a drinking town with a fishing problem.

Marker 1 had some packages from Amazon and we took those back to the boat.  We got a water filter for the ice maker which we hope will make the ice taste better and also a water filter for the hose for when we fill the tanks on the boat. Also got a tricolor LED light for the dingy for night moves and a new USB cable to update my Garmin GPS's. Next was ACE hardware for some more stainless steel screws and new 120 volt plugs for the fly bridge. The ones we had were not the best quality and the plugs for charging the IPads worked intermittently. 

We arrived at West Marine at 4:00 and they had just finished unpacking and we picked up a new heavy duty boat hook (longer and beefier) new flag staff (broke the old one unloading the dingy) a new US ensign ( hey new staff, new flag) and some more engine zincs.  Now I have enough projects and things to do on the boat for a good while.  The 7' long boat hook was fun to ride back to the boat with!  Debbie was jousting....

Back aboard it was time for Abby's walk and I took the bicycle and we rode over to the Causeway and Abby ran along the beach and then back on the sidewalk to the boat. Dinner aboard although we checked out some places we want to go for dinner and will in the weeks to come.