Venice

Just hanging with Sharon and Buddy.

We drove out to Snooks Haven in the afternoon....pretty little old time-y beach bar on the river.

 Listened to some live music, nice family area.

Just hanging!

Hanging in Venice

Just a relaxing land-bound day in Venice! 

We walked about a mile over to the Venice Airport for a festival that Sharon suggested - Bluegrass music and BBQ.

Beautiful day and very well attended.

There was a "chili cookoff" - with the public sampling 25 different group's chili.   You voted for your favorite.  I could only sample 1 type - a great white chili that was like a corn chowder with only chicken (no mammal meat).  But it was great!  So, I voted for them.

The had a nice stage set up and a good bluegrass band playing.  We didn't sample any BBQ because we were all full from the chili samples!   We didn't tote chairs so decided before long that it was time to walk back to their house.   Spent the rest of the day in the pool and generally being lazy!  

Visiting in Venice

We picked up a rental car and drove 3 hours across to the west coast of Florida to visit with Buddy and Sharon for about a week.  Wow, it was culture shock driving a car for the first time since the first of February!  And it's amazing how many people fill up the highways in Florida!!!

Arrived in Venice and began what looks to be a relaxing week....

Poolside at their house -

And in the pool!

Back in Florida

I will say that I terribly miss the pretty blue water!!

Upon arrival at Fort Pierce, we didn't eve drop anchor - just kept heading north on the Intercoastal Waterway.

Lots of houses tucked away on the shoreline.

Several sad looking abandoned boats like this.  Maybe left from a recent hurricane?

I heard a rumble and looked up to see the Blue Angels streak by trailing smoke for a moment.  (Hard to see - they're just little black dots on this photo).

An big bird on a marker post - I looked it up and it's possibly an Osprey??

 The houses got fancy in places.

And just pretty scenery in other places.

A flying fish was spotted on the deck - already dried in the strong sun.

Buddy and Sharon invited us to come visit while we're in South Florida, so we'll be going to the west coast tomorrow.  Anchored at Cocoa for a calm night.

Back to the good ole' USA

The trip from the northern Abacos was in settled weather - and we fished!

First of many Barracudas -  they all get tossed back in...

But then we caught this snapper!  Yum!!  He got filleted and is in the freezer waiting a cookout.

Otherwise, just 24 hours of motoring - last Bahamian sunset for the spring.

This was the closest any big ship got to us during the night.

And before we knew it, we were in the Ft. Pierce channel.   These fishing boats were in the middle of the busy channel....buying bait from a bait boat!

Easy checkin with customs and we are on our way northbound.....first of many, many bridges.

And lots of Florida scenery!   Now for a nap....

Moving the boat back towards the US

We're moving back towards the US coast starting today.

Pulled up anchor and headed out from Treasure Cay this morning.

We decided to take the "shortcut" past Don't Rock instead of another trip out thru Whale Cut.  It saves a couple of hours, so worth it.

This is Don't Rock - just a lone rock protruding out in the shallow water.

The shortcut is very, very shallow.    The chart says the depth is .7 meters at low tide or  2.3  feet.  Since our boat draws about 4 feet, we obviously need more water than that under our keels.  So we had to time it on a rising tide (in case we run aground we'll still have some extra tide to lift us off, in theory).     Here's our path in case a fellow traveler wants to follow it - the lowest point we saw was about 6 feet so we breezed thru (but very slowly just in case!)

Strange brand new shipping facility at the north end of Great Abaco.  Looks brand new....

And completely deserted.

Arrived at Great Sale Cay about 12 hours later - great motor/sail.   Nothing much here - just a really good anchorage for the hop-off to the US coast.

 We'll probably do a 24 hour hop to the east coast of Florida since the weather is supposed to move in with a dreaded low pressure system by the weekend.  So, we'll be back with you in a day or two!

Treasure Cay

The big storm that was predicted did not really materialize.....we woke to cloudy skies and did have about an hour of heavy rain and wind.   Nice to get another "wash" of the salt crystals that grow everywhere on the boat.

The Capt'n checking things out...

After the rain stopped we set out towards clear skies and Treasure Cay (about 4 hours of motoring in choppy seas)

 Pretty entrance to Treasure Cay harbor.

There were mangroves, so of course we had to dinghy thru them.  This was the extremely shallow entrance channel into the mangroves.

Once inside, there was a mostly deep path thru.

Interesting things on the bottom.

The water was not as clear I'd hoped - looks like the shallow entrance probably traps alot of the water so it doesn't get flushed out regularly.  These fish seemed unconcerned that I was there with my camera.

More interesting coral and growth.

A little starfish.

And another different style starfish.

Back to Sojourn.  We have decided to start making our way back to the States....there is a good weather window coming up to cross the gulf stream this weekend.   We've got some normal boat maintenance that we need to do.  Plus, we need to schedule our two new engines for installation! 

Marsh Harbour

Went for a walk to check out "Boat Harbour" on the other side of the island.

Lots of big, fancy boats in this very protected marina.

Neat resort but almost deserted.  The skies look lovely but there is an approaching cold front that will make things nasty overnite and into tomorrow morning.  We'll move on after the weather passes us.

Marsh Harbour

Got a few errands done today in Marsh Harbour.

Lee and Lisa from Va Nunc invited us over to their Manta for evening snacks and conversation.

And we got to meet yet another Manta couple - Kristine and Scott from Bliss!  Neat folks, fun to hear all the cruising stories.

We'll stay in Marsh Harbour one more night to wait out a coming storm, then back to cruising!