Week 25
Emerald Coast of Florida and Gulf Crossing
This week starts our journey in the state of Florida. We intend to stay here for few weeks as we want to see different cities. The start of the week was not that pleasant as it rained everyday. We left Panama City in the rain but it cleared up as we got into the Scipio Marina in Apalachicola, the heart of Florida’s forgotten coast. It was still cold so no water activities just yet, just biking and visiting the historic town. While in town, we had dinner with loopers and played bingo at the bar.
We stayed two days and left for Carrabelle. It was a bright sunny morning but not even 30 minutes in the ride, we got hit by a thick fog in the shallow water only about 5 ft deep. We could barely see the red and green markers and I was praying not to hit ground again. We survived but it was one of those memorable scary moments. It’s amazing how quickly the weather conditions change in the water. We got to Carrabelle and surprised to see at least 20 looper boats in the area, all waiting for good weather to cross the gulf.
On December 12th, the good weather finally came in and we had an extremely joyous overnight gulf crossing. We started at Dog Island at 3PM and got to Tarpon Springs at 10AM. I would say the water condition is perfect that night, saw amazing sunset, moonrise, cruising in the dark until sunrise came. Another memorable experience I will remember for a long time.
We checked in at the Downtown Tarpon Springs Marina, went to sleep till the afternoon and attended Cote’s family Christmas party, a family friend from Rhode Island who relocated here in Florida.
The shows the travel from Panama City to Tarpon Springs including the gulf crossing.
Here are some of the pictures from this week’s adventure.
Week 26
Tarpon Springs, Clearwater, St. Petersburg to Bradenpoint
Our stay at Tarpon Springs was fun as the marina is right there in downtown. The town is known as the “Sponge Capital of the World”. There’s so many good restaurants and shops and they have a nice bike path that leads to everywhere you want to go including the area where we saw manatees. The town has a deep Greek Heritage and I really enjoyed the delicious Greek food for 4 days.
The next stop was Clearwater which is a popular destination in Florida. The city is beautifully decorated for Christmas Season. We had a good dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. We’ve been here before, we stayed in a hotel, but getting here with our own boat and riding places with bike made it a different wonderful experience. On the second day, we explored Clearwater with our bike but it started raining so we head back to the marina with crab legs to go for dinner.
We left Clearwater and stopped at an anchorage in St. Petersburg. The ride was niche as the condos and houses by the intercoastal waterways are very nice. Next day, we continued to Safe Harbon Pier 77 at Bradenpoint and waited for our kids to show up right after midnight. Their flight was delayed.
Below map shows our route from Tarpon Springs, Clearwater, St Petersburg and Bradenpoint, Florida.
Here are some of the pictures from this week’s adventure.
Week 27
Christmas with my family in Florida
Our kids flew into Tampa airport and spent Christmas with us. I’m so blessed to have them with me. I didn’t realized how grown up they are now until they show up at the marina with their own rental car. I guessed, there is first time for everything. We spent the first few days at Safe Harbor Pier 77 Marina near the Anna Maria Island and later move the boat to Safe Harbor Regatta Pointe in Palmetto near Tampa.
Steve is thankful for my son coming because they did some boat works he wanted to be done. My daughter and i went to the beach while the boys are working. We did something fun everyday. We went to a manatees lake, dolphin tour, safari tour, Busch Garden, watched Avatar at the theater and made a Christmas dinner at the boat.
When they left on Dec 27th, the boat seemed bigger. We left the marina that afternoon also, we had to wait for high tide as the water is too shallow for us to leave the dock. The cruise going south gets more interesting as there are more things to see, nice waterfront houses and condos, trailer parks, thick mangroves, and lots of fishing boats. Sometimes, they drive so fast and close to us and they said that’s the normal Florida boaters.
Here are some of the pictures from this week’s adventure.
Week 28
Burnt Store & Sanibel Island for New Years
The anchorage at Sarasota was a great spot, nice sunset last night and the houses by the water still has their Christmas lights, but the best was waking up at sunrise seeing two cute dolphins playing near the boat. It reminded me of how great that our two kids came to the boat for Christmas.
We got to Safe Harbor Burnt Store marina in Punta Gorda. The marina is part of a gated community with beautiful and diverse housing styles. They have lots of amenities like golf course, tennis/pickleball courts, swimming pool, bike path but is not close to the beach. I met some nice residents while playing pickle ball. One day, K-Plan picked us up at the marina and drove us to the Fisherman’s Village filled with nice Christmas decor and they have good restaurants.
Three days later we cruised towards Sanibel Marina. Sanibel Island is located off Fort Myers, is a renowned vacation spot known as the “Seashell Capital of the World” due to its east-west orientation and lots of diverse shells. It has the best bike path system I’ve seen so far. There is a restaurant inside the marina that closed at 9PM on New Year’s Eve the manager gave a free shot to the customers. We welcomed the 2026 in our boat. On New Year’s Day, I have a tradition of doing polar plunge in Rhode Island so we tried to find one in Sanibel but we went to the wrong beach. Instead we just swim aI the lighthouse beach, that was my warmest polar plunge ever.
On Jan 3rd, friends from Rhode Island sailing group came and visited us for a day. We had a great lunch and after that the wives went to the beach and did some shopping while the guys stayed at the marina talking about boat stories.
January is the NFL playoff season so we spend lots of time in the boat watching the games in the TV.
Here are some of the pictures from this week’s adventure.
Week 29
Marco Island to Key West
On Jan 4th, we left Sanibel and move to Rose Marina in Marco Island. The marina is pretty busy, lots of boats that do tours, fishing, snorkeling, dolphin watch, etc and they have a huge building for boat works, Our slip is next to a cruise ship that travels around Florida. Every other day a cruise ship gets there before morning and leaves at 5PM so the passengers can do all the day tours in Marco Island and Fort Myers area.
We spent the week in Marco Island as we are waiting for good weather to cross to Key West. Luckily there are enough things to do in Marco but my favorite is the pickleball and the beach. We hang out with two other loopers, K-Plan and A cool change 3, had dinner and drinks at the Tiki Bar at the marina. I haven’t had tequila shots in a long time until now.
We drove to the Everglade and did an air boat ride and saw a huge alligator, that must be at least 12 ft long The boat driver has some interesting stories and showed us the skin of a 20ft snake they caught in the river. Then he gave us a thrill when he drove super fast along the curvy river passing tons of mangroves. It feels like a 30 minute roller coaster ride and for extra excitement, he drove really close to the mangroves.
We had late lunch at the Everglades Gun and Rod Club. The place has some really rustic alligator decor. We drove back to Marco Island and before returning the rental car, i went shopping and my last stop was the Sweet Annie’s ice cream.
Here are some of the pictures from this week’s adventure.
Key West