Tag: Status

Heading south from Sarasota to Venice. Sarasota’s not been the best: lost wallet, glitchy head, dead battery, no pump out. Grrrr. Weighing anchor and getting underway felt good.My feeling about Sarasota wasn’t helped by the dour and unfriendly attitude of the staff at Marina Jack’s when we pulled in to purchase fuel and get the tanks pumped out.

Interestingly, the pump out facility — a large shop vac type thing that sucks sewage out of the (septic) holding tank on the boat — was broken. While there was were other installations at the Marina on other docks, most of the staff was utterly disinterested in offering assistance — with the exception of a younger dock hand who was helpful and is unlikely to last long at the Marina.

While I really wanted to get on the “outside,” into the Gulf and head for Fort Meyers in one quick run we ended up taking the ICW *again* because the winds were gusting to 35 mph, making the outside passage bumpy and uncomfortable. Another GRRRRR!!!

At least the scenery was kinda pretty. The closer we got the Venice, the nice it seemed to get.

Anchoring in Venice really wasn’t an option, so we docked at the Crows Nest Marina. The Harbormaster there couldn’t have been more different than the one at Marina Jacks — as you can tell, Marina Jacks really got under my skin.

I didn’t do a whole lot of exploring in Venice. I mostly stayed on the boat, did some boat projects, and fished a bit. Cita and Denise made use of the free bikes at the marina and did a little bit of touring around the area. The seemed to like it. I just wanted to get out of the whole Sarasota area and to a place where the water was a clear blue and warm.

In Sarasota. Anchored out at Marina Jack’s. Deployed the dinghy for the first time to collect Cita who arrived from PDX. Actually, as it turned out, we weren’t at Marina Jack’s exactly — a swank but *unfriendly* venue that caters to power boaters — but at the free city run anchoring field just outside of Marina Jacks.

This anchoring field, which we picked at for convenience in yet another late-night-early-morning landfall event turned out to be a GREAT spot. The $15 – $30/night marinas of the north and west have started giving way to $50 – $100/night Marinas. The free anchoring field was a welcome change.

Since we are at anchor, we finally had to deploy the yet to be named dinghy. The previous dingy was named Mini Pearl (a great name) but I am not sure that we want the boat name on the dinghy for this one. The theory behind if your boat’s tender is at the dock, you aren’t likely to be on your boat, making it a more interesting target for burglars.

Besides being downtown Sarasota, and walking distance to a groceries (Whole Foods and Publics), banks, boutiques, restaurants, and a GREAT old-time hardware store where I got some cables made, the anchorage comes equipped with a great beach-front tiki bar named O’Learey’s. If you go by the bar, say “Hi!” to Char and Kate, two of the bartenders. They’re great!