June 7-15, 2007 Palm Island Marina

After Tropical Storm Barry, the girls posed for a picture in Sarasota City Park. John Henry

was docked straight across in Marina Jack's. (Remember to double click pictures for enlargements).

From Sarasota, FL we traveled north back to Egmont Key near Tampa. We anchored for a couple of days and went Fishing and Shelling. Egmont Key was the best shelling yet. Amber and Emma collected enough shells to give some for gifts. On Saturday, June 9th, we raised anchor and departed via the Gulf of Mexico and spent the day cruising and fishing all the way down to Pelican Bay, just inside Boca Grande Pass. Wilma caught 4 spanish mackerel on the trip with each one bigger than the last. We asked Amber and Emma to hold the fish for us.

We arrived at Pelican Bay which Emma thinks should be called Dolphin Bay because of how many Dolphins she counted. Amber and Emma spent time with Grandma counting dolphins, having snack and writing in their journals from the fly bridge. A little piece of paradise.

Just as we were turning on the generator for the evening charge the impeller broke. We spent a hot even in the dark while Wink made the repair which only took 3 hours. We had cold sandwiches and bedtime stories with headlights.

The next morning we motored north to Cape Haze, FL to Palm Island Marina and MarineMax to have our boat bottom painted. MarineMax has a 100,000 lb lift. John Henry weighed in

at 61,000 lbs. (including fuel tank at 90% full, water tank at 50% full, and the holding

tank - empty).

The Marina had great weather and no requirement for the crane for 3 days so they left John Henry in the crane for safety. They started the job on Monday and we splashed back in on Thursday morning. They did a very nice job. WE DECIDED TO STAY A COUPLE OF DAYS

AND ENJOY THE POOL. THIS IS PARIDISE.... 20 FT FROM BOAT TO POOL! Amber and Emma are in photo in front of John Henry. They both swim like Mermaids.

Amber is cruising the bottom of the pool.

Emma prefers no goggles - she's a natural.

June 4 - Grandchildren

Before I start, please remember that these pictures are small and that you can double click any picture to make it bigger for better viewing enjoyment. Then just click your back button to return to the blog. There have been several times I've had to click the back button multiple times to get back to the blog.

Also, I'd like to take a moment to say that in the end of the Tropical Storm Barry, there were 3 boats aground and 1 boat sunk at the city park anchorage area. I took a couple of pictures of one boat, but decided not to post at this time.

Amber and Emma in the playground area of City Park which is located right behind Marina Jack's. We walk Sara there everyday when we are at the marina.

This picture is of Amber and Emma with the Ringling Bridge behind them, still in city park.

There is a nice water fountain area where kids can play in the water, unfortuately, we arrived before it opened. We'll try again on another day.

The park has many swings and I think the girls made sure that they all worked.

This is the LaBarge which has palm trees and mermaids on it. This is a tour boat that goes out several times a day from Marina Jack's.

June 1 - Hurricane Season

Here is a picture of Amber-left, Toni-center and Emma-right. Our Grandchildren saying goodbye to their mother who returned to Texas. We have the grandchildren for the summer.

Thursday, May 30, 2007 we left Sarasota - Marina Jack's Dock at 0900 and headed north for cruising of Tampa Bay.

On the way north, we had life jacket drills to confirm that the girls could get in them fast and they decided as a rule to wear them in the pilot house while cruising in case there were dolphins outside that they could go look at under the bow. We are also holding boat classes on board to help the children learn more about the boat they are traveling on.

We spent the night anchored off Egmont Key Bird Santuary. Then on Friday morning, we dingy'd over to the public beach area and hunted for shells. Each of the girls collected a nice handful apiece.

As we were preparing to up anchor, the winds increased and apparently the chain caught on the achor chain shoot and ripped it up and also mangled our chain stripper. Luckily, Wink had just gotten a spare chain stripper from Mirage when we were there in April. We are navigating using our #3 backup system, my computer with Nobeltec 8. Our Main computer and our #2 backup computer are at Mirage getting the bugs worked out of them. We miss our weatherworks. After having trouble with the Chain Shoot, we double checked our weather conditions to discover Tropical Storm Barry - so we decided to head back to Sarasota to a Marina that we really liked for the weekend and to await a new chain shoot and another spare chain stripper from Mirage by mail. We arrived at Marina Jack's about 1800 (6pm) with winds around 17-20 mph.

Sara awoke us this morning - Saturday to high winds. Sarasota, FL is having a 5 ft. storm surge. We are very protected and on a floating dock. Wilma is checking out the storm in the bay dirctly behind us (above). The photo below shows the surge over the point of the park.
The photo's below show a group of boats anchored that have pulled loose and 4 boats are banging into each other - doesn't look like much damage (if any) but they are tight on top of each other. The second picture is showing a boat that I think is aground just behind us on the other side of City Island.