Days 237 -243

Gulfport Fl - Palmetto FL (Riviera Dunes Marina)

• Start 8:00 AM
• End 11:05 PM
• Underway 3:05 Hours
• Distance 24 Miles
• Total Miles on Trip 4290
• Av Speed 7.8 knots
• Weather Sunny , 57 Degrees, Wind 8 Knots NW

It was a good decision to spend an extra day in Gulfport. While the trip to Palmetto was pretty good, it did get very choppy on Tampa Bay. Once we hit open water the chop was 2-3 feet. We decided to pick up our speed as Nothing To Plunder handles the chop much better at 15 knots than at 8 knots. Even with the choppy water it is great to be traveling.

The more we travel through Florida the more we are seeing that yes Florida does have a lot of water, but most of it is VERY shallow water. When we left the marina, we could look across the water and see the bridge that we needed to pass under, and it was less than a mile away, but we had to follow the channel almost 3 miles to get to the bridge. In another section the channel was about 75 feet wide, and on either side of the channel was less than one foot of water. Sea Tow must make a fortune from boaters that stray outside of the channel!

When we arrived at Riviera Dunes Marina, Mark & Karen (Kay Dee) were waiting to help us dock. Riviera Dunes is a well-run marina that truly caters to boaters. As we were docking Bill the general manager arrived and was very concerned that his staff did not hear us on the radio, and was not there to assist us. Mark assured him, that we did not radio the marina, and as "Loopers" we usually just help each other out docking.

It is great to catch up with Mark & Karen and have spent the week hanging out with them and exploring. This is their home port and they will be here until the end of March. They have their car here and it makes getting around very easy. One advantage (or maybe disadvantage) of having a car, is we have been running non-stop.

We had lots of fun with Mark & Karen. Our first excursion was to the local shooting range. It was Angel's first time shooting a gun, and it has been several years since I have been shooting. She did great. After the gun range we went to the County Fair. When we first arrived, we thought it we made a bad choice. The Midway was closed and there were not that many people there. Fortunately it got better very quickly. They had a small zoo section where you could feed the giraffe. I never feed a giraffe before, and Angel still has not. (CHICKEN!) Before that I did not know that their tongues are purple. There was also a circus with the fair. It was a pretty good day for $6 a person.

Tampa had both an RV Show and Boat Show while we were there. It is only a 45 minute car ride so we went to both. The RV was much better. We are considering buying an RV and spend winters traveling to warm areas when we are done The Loop.

Another highlight of Palmetto was meeting up with a Kathi Feyti, Kathi and her husband Joe were the first dive instructors I worked with. Joe was in Las Vegas at a trade show, hopefully they can meet us in Sarasota to catch up with him as well.

Looking at the long range weather forecast, next week end there is a storm coming in with very strong winds. We were supposed to be in Venice FL when the storm is expected, except the marina is not very well protected and they asked us to make other arrangements. They do not want us to damage either our boat or their docks. Because of this we are extending our next stop (Sarasota) for a week. While we don't want to stay that long it is a well-protected marina to weather out the storm.