Greetings,

Another short update, and as usual it is a little late. We did not stay in Clearwater the entire week, but left on November 8th. I was able to figure out the watermaker problem pretty quickly. As I suspected, the high pressure pump was starving for water. The details will be in the November Maintenance log, but the ultimate problem was a defective sediment filter. When I replaced the defective filter, the watermaker functioned normally.

We looked at the weather, and it seemed a good weather window was opening up on Saturday 11-08-14, although there was some cold rainy weather coming in Saturday night. We left the marina at 0650, and got underway. Once we got out of Clearwater Pass, and headed south, we were able to motor sail.

It was a pretty day, and when we made our turn south we stayed close into shore for several miles. We could see the buildings and condos all lined up on the beach. We had a great time trying to dodge all of the crab trap floats. It is Stone Crab season, so there were lots of traps out in the shallow water.

When we arrived at the channel to go into Tampa Bay, we turned east and followed the channel into the bay past Egmont Key. When we got past Egmont Key, we turned south towards Anna Maria Sound. This is the entrance from Tampa Bay that is behind all of the keys, or barrier islands, that are in front of Bradenton and Sarasota. This would eventually get us to the mooring field in Sarasota Bay.

We did not make the opening of the first bridge we came to, so we had to wait 20 minutes to make the next scheduled opening. We made that opening, and continued on south to the mooring field. By the time we actually got to the mooring field, I wished we had had that 20 minutes back. It just started to rain as we were 15 minutes from the mooring field. When we picked up the mooring it was really raining.

We got secured, got down below to get dried off, and my good friend Tate called on the cell phone.

Earlier on when we got into Tampa Bay, I had called Tate to let him know about when we would be arriving. He had asked us to join him and his wife, Lucy, for dinner. We gladly accepted, as it would be great to catch up face to face.

Tate had been in the Marina Jack Restaurant watching us get tied up to the mooring! Because of the weather, I asked him for a rain check, and he agreed it was not a good time for us to be getting into our tender. We made plans to get together Sunday night.

We got dried off, and then had a hot meal of one of our favorite comfort foods, spaghetti. When we finished dinner, and got all of the dishes done we were early into bed for a good night's sleep.

We have been here in Sarasota for just over a week. We have been catching up with our good friend Tate, and other friends that have moved into the area. We have also been playing tourist and visiting the De Soto National Memorial , Ringling Circus Museum, and the Ringling Mansion.

The remaining time here in Sarasota will be spent getting some old repairs finished up, and repairing the hot water heater that sprung a leak this past Saturday night. Our plan can be viewed on our Passages Planned link. The weather may "adjust" the plan somewhat, but we are hoping to be very close to the plan.

I am working very hard to keep the November Cruising/Maintenance log current, so I will be able to get out all of the details of this month on the web page very soon after the end of the month.

We are getting ready for a bad cold front that will be hitting us tomorrow and on into Tuesday. When that passes the weather should clear up, and warm up.

I hope this update finds you all well and happy, and getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday.

regards,

jimk

Member Seven Seas Cruising Association

WEB page http://www.dreamaway.net