It’s taken me far too long to get here but since I’ve finally sat down with a cup of green tea in hand, it’s time to recount our past 2 weeks in St Petersburg Florida. We arrived Monday Dec 1st after a 22 hour run up the coast from Ft Myers beach and dropped anchor safely on the south side of the pier, not knowing the area this seemed at good as any and wondered aloud why there weren’t more cruisers here in anticipation of the St Pete boat show.
Over the next couple of days we prep and prepared the boat and ourselves getting all the brochures ready for networking the show, since we didn’t have the transport we utilized the closest CVS for printing cartridges and printing paper. St Pete does have a courtesy dock for dinghies to use and it’s $1.00 an hour or cruisers can take advantage of the Nth Vinoy basins dingy dock at $5.00 a day. Thank goodness the show management provides a dock for boaters during the show as paying each day would have added up quickly.
Everyone in the V berth
Crew from several boats aboard SV Tranquility for dinner
Boat kids
Saturday night and Jamie, Sam and baby Liam came too stay aboard HMS and we had a fabulous dinner of curried chicken and fine wine, of course this was much more decadent than the free pizza and beer they were serving at the Latt’s and Att’s party that Bob Bitching and crew were putting on, but hey we hate standing in line with wet feet even if it is free and there were just too many people. Thinking that it was going to be an uneventful evening we all went to bed and were awoken at about 3am as the wind picked up during the night and our big boat show battle flag was a little too high and started hitting the mast as it was flapping in the breeze which woke up Sam and in turn his walking around securing items on the back deck woke us up. We then noticed that one of the other boats in the anchorage had dragged anchor and was up against the sea wall in front of the airport. After noticing a flotilla of dinghies it was decided to sit back and watch as one more people would only add to the confusion and yelling that was going on. Once we saw some of the other dinghy’s depart from being yelled at for trying to help and the boat managed to get off the sea wall but was in such a panic he was driving around at full throttle and had still had the anchor down. After realizing that this was only a hazard to us and the other boats in the anchorage it was decided to go and firmly lend assistance, upon arrival Sam and Cam were yelled at and told to leave them alone and that everything was under control. After politely but firmly directing the captain to pull up their anchor and some calmly words to his wife whom stayed at the wheel we used our tender as a tug and brought them out into the deeper water and safely away from all other hazards. Once clear of SV Tranquility they then proceeded to go around in circles for the next hour or more trying to find a place to re anchor. At one point it looked as though they were going to drop their anchor over top of ours thus after letting out enough chain they would have ended up right on top of us, however they must have noticed this half way though their anchoring maneuver and thought better of it. Finally at quarter to five in the morning we decided that it was best to try and get a little shut eye before having to get up for the last day of the show and left them to continue driving around in circles until the sun came up. That afternoon they did come by with apologize for the abusive language and thank-you’s for the help and professional guidance.
Tranquility crew had the most laid back day ever on Monday with everyone just cruising and playing with Liam, we had told Maya and Fynn that we would do anything they wanted today since they had endured the 4 days of going to seminars and networking. First thing was that they wanted to go fishing, so we drop of the Danoch family and headed to the pier where we went up to the dock house and the kids got to feed the pelicans and fish from the wharf, Fynn was a little chatter box talking up a storm to any fisherman around whether they wanted to engage or not, we stayed till after dusk and it was only because the bellies were rumbling that started to leave and looking back we saw the HMS Bounty tied up on the face dock. This would be its home for the next couple of months. Unfortunately we wouldn’t get the chance to tour on it so we took a couple of pictures as we headed out of the basin on route for Tarpon Springs home of John and Libby and the great Sea Sponge industry of Florida.