Galati Marina, Anna Maria FL 12/15/17 - 1/15/18

So, what have we been doing.  On our arrival at Galati back in mid December we unloaded the motorcycle before we moved to our slip and made use of it almost everyday.  I'm so glad I decided to bring it as it makes life so much easier having wheels.

Debbie was hard at work again and made this much needed cover for the BMW, and I helped!

For the first week we were pretty much alone here and the weather was great so we rode the bike down to St Armand's Circle on Longboat Key and Debbie toured the expensive shops and came back empty handed!!

Having ice cream at Ben and Jerry's on St Armand's Circle.  That's Ben & Jerry in the picture over my shoulder.

We did the usual's like cruising the beachfront and West Marine too.  We found a local flea-market produce place called Red Barn that has multiple fruit and veggie stands to keep us nourished.  It's huge and well stocked with many different vendors and lots of people especially leading up to the Holidays. Brenda and Russ Cluett arrived on our second week and we had lots of fun dinners together both at their place and on the boat and went out to lots of local joints for live music and food, maybe a beer or three... This area has to be the King of Happy Hours.  Cortez is where they stay and it has many very reasonable bars and restaurants from the Cortez Kitchen to Fire and Stone Pizza, Skinny's, Habatchi Super Buffet and Island Times.  We covered many of them over the next three weeks, and didn't get to them all.  As Russ says "Cortez is a small drinking village with a fishing problem"!  We enjoyed it a lot.

Brenda, Russ and I went out on a charter fishing boat for a day excursion and we all caught enough fish to feed us during the day.  Nothing very big but lots of fun with non stop action and great mates on the boat who took care of everything from supplying bait and tackle to advise and then cleaning and filleting everyone's catch at the end of the day.  It inspired me enough that I bought a rod that Galati had in the Marina store and Chris Galati had his mate rig the rod and help me pick out appropriate tackle and gear to get me started fishing.  Chris even gave me some trolling rigs as they had hundreds for their own sports fishing boats.  Galati specializes in Sports Fishing boats and there was a 90 foot Viking on our dock and many other 60-80 foot Sportsfishes.  I watched one day as they hauled oil down to Mr Grinch the 90 footer.  It seemed that almost everyday there was someone or many people working on it.  Anyways it takes 90 gallons of oil to do a complete oil change on that boat!! Well Debbie, Russ and I were out fishing Debbie made friends with the mate on Mr Grinch and scored a few pounds of Mahi Mahi, and black Grouper that they had frozen from their last trip.  See she is a better fisherman than me!  and it was all vacuum sealed and frozen too!

Our Fishing Charter crew

Mr Grinch 90 foot Viking sports fish.  Nice Graphics

Debbie decorated the salon for Christmas and it looked great as always.  We had a quite Christmas eve dinner with just Debbie and I and she made a fabulous tortiere pie with carrot cake for dessert.  Yum yum.  We even had chow chow made by Les Seguins to go along with the tortiere pie. On Christmas day Russ and Brenda joined us for Roast Beast dinner and carrot cake for dessert.  It was nice to spend an important holiday with such good friends.

Tortiere Pie and Chowchow

Debbie's Christmas decorations

Debbie's son Kris and daughter in law Angela sent a Christmas care package that had a rough ride getting here.

Abby got a new toy in the care package

And then all of these goodies.  Thanks Chris and Angela

My sister Angela sent more goodies.  Excellent fudge which we are still eating.  Goes really well with red wine!

 I had a tooth aching and found a local dentist who diagnosed that I had a minor gum infection and that I need a deep cleaning and some antibiotics placed under the gums.  I knew that the cleaning job I had done in Fairhope wasn't up to the usual standards and ended up paying the price.  Anyways its all taken care of and feels much better.  Surprisingly Yelp has worked very well for finding local Doctors and Dentists, at least most of them.

On New Years Eve Russ and Brenda came and picked us up at the boat for a cruise over to their place and then a fantastic Shrimp, crab. lobster, scallop boil out on the patio at their place with Jim and Miranda their friends and neighbors at the development they stay in. Debbie made a beautiful Cherry Pie with lattice crust for dessert that was enjoyed by all. An enjoyable evening but we didn't even get close to midnight.  In bed by eleven I think.  Brenda kindly drove us home so no drinking and driving.

Debbie's Cherry Pie

Brenda is making lobster bibs for us all.

New Years Eve dinner and celebration

Russ' chopper.  All 50ccs of it

On another day Russ called and asked us if we wanted to join them for fishing on the Rod and Reel Pier.  Its about a mile away from our boat so we headed over and tried our luck at the fishing. For $2 they give you a rod and reel and bait.  The beer is dirt cheap but alas there were no fish biting.  Good thing the beer was cheap.

Russ and I at the Rod and Reel

Abby is popular wherever she goes and here was no exception.  Helping us fish and looking cute

Debbie and I made a day of a visit to the Mote Marine Aquarium and Research Center at New Pass on Longboat Key.  Alligators, Turtles, Sharks, Coral and lots of fish.  They had playful Sea Otters and there were many (I mean lots) of volunteers who helped to interpret all of the things there were to see.  We had a late lunch at the New Pass Grill after our visit, lime beers and cheeseburgers in our own paradise.

One of the sea turtles

Sardines in the shark tank.  They swim fast!

Lunch after the Mote Marine visit

The motorcycle has been very well behaved but Kelly one of the dock workers at Galati asked me about the rear tire and what I had done to wear all of the tread off of one side of the rear tire.  That got my attention and when I looked sure enough worn right down to the threads but not on the bottom of the tire but on the side. I think this was probably caused by under-inflation and too much wine.  Too much wine?  Well I have taken the motorcycle to Total Wine quite often and I can carry over 24 bottles of wine and 6 or so half gallons of liqueur so that weighs quite a lot and with the under-inflated tire probably that's what did it in. I found a BMW dealer in Sarasota and scheduled a tire change with them for the next day, Saturday just before Christmas.  The fuel gauge had stopped working a while ago and I was relying on the odometer to tell me when to fill up.  I asked them about it and when they checked the warranty info they found it was covered for 12 years and we scheduled taking care of that the following week.  That's on a 2008 BMW almost 10 years old.  Otherwise it was over $500.00 to fix it.  Lucky :) They also lent me a BMW 1200 scrambler to take out for a test drive and breakfast.  I went to the downtown area of Sarasota and had a nice breakfast and when I got back my bike was ready to go.  Hap's Cycles in Sarasota, great guys.  Thanks.

On one particularly nice day Debbie and I rode the BMW down for a tour of Siesta Key and Casey Key.  We stopped at two marinas in Venice and made our choice to book at the Crow's nest in Venice for our next stop.  We will be there for a week until my niece and her boyfriend Greg arrive for 7-10 days as we cruise further south in a few weeks. We stopped at the north Jetty Fish Camp on the south end of Casey Key for a beer at the Camp.  This place has been here forever and the structure they are in was once a streetcar in Tampa.  Its really old and you can still see the wood interior of the streetcar on the ceiling. Our family started coming to Casey in 1966 so I have many fond memories of this area and it always feels like coming home.

North Jetty Fish Camp.  I've been coming here for 52 years.  Wow!!

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year to All

Our last evening on Anna Maria Island at the Waterfront Restaurant  Excellent place and we bicycled over and back.

Well after a month of enjoying Anna Maria Island we are underway again but not going far.  We said our goodbyes to all the great people at Galati and thanked them for their hospitality. I tried to give Miren the dockmaster (dockmistress) $20 for helping us over the past month but she would have nothing to do with it. I told her I might want to come back next year and wanted to make sure I was still welcome. We got pumped out on our departure and are now ready to move to the Crow's Nest in Venice.

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.