Mansions, Palm Trees, Dolphins and Hammerheads

Treasure Island, Sunset Beach, Tradewinds Island, The Don CeSar, Pass-a-Grille Beach, Pass-a-Grille North Channel, under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, out into Tampa Bay and under the Tampa Bay Bridge, past Bradenton Beach and Longboat Key and finally into Marina Jack in Sarasota, FL, about 53 miles south.

That's the news and here's the views:

We are here

Today's Passage to Marina Jack in Sarasota, FL

Another View

Today's Destination, Marina Jack in Sarasota, FL

Fog descended on our anchorage at first light this morning.  I remember looking out the hatch in the master berth seeing stars move by the mast guy wire as sunrise approached this morning.  No sooner than we had coffee made, a thick fog developed and killed a glorious sunrise.  We made our 8:00 departure window and headed out to the GIWW by retracing our bread crumbs from yesterday.  There were three drawbridges to pass, and they only opened on the hour, 20 min after, and 40 min after.  Add this to the no-wake zones and it was slow going for the first several miles south to Sarasota, FL.

Here is an example of the average waterside mansion.  Imagine houses like this one on both sides of the canal for miles and miles.  Some twice this size all with lift docks with large boats slung above the water.  Palm trees and mangrove carefully arranged in manicured lawns make for the perfect post card photo.  No way to photograph all this as the next house is more spectacular than the last.

 Tampa Bay Bridge

The firstmate is watching dolphins ride the bow wave.  You can go to Meg Sanders’ Facebook page to see videos of dolphins playing in the wave.  She got a great video of one jumping out of the water.  (There is a reason we don't post videos on our blog.  There just doesn't seem to be a way to do it.)  While watching dolphins, we saw a hammerhead shark streak across our bow just under the surface.  No mistaking a hammerhead.

 And where there weren't houses there were all manor of skyscrapers.  Everything is so BIG out here it's hard to convey the magnitude through a camera lense.

Sailboat regatta near Marina Jack

 Pano of Marina Jack

John Ringling Causeway Bridge

 RED MEAT.. That's what's for supper!

Looking off the stern