Christmas Time at Twin Dolphins Marina

Just some pictures of the Marina. There are many, many boats decorated for Christmas.

Merry Christmas from Ski and Sue. Look for the blog to start up again in January.

Twin Dolphins Marina: Bradenton

To the right is the Sun Shine bridge in Tampa Bay. We headed past it to the Mantee River, which was 10 to 15 miles ahead. It turned up that we made it to the slip before dark.
When we arrived at Twin Dolphins and checked in I found an old friend. Charlie Price. Cgarlie was the harbor master at North Point Marina in IL. He is now the harbor master at Twin Dolphins. Charlie was the best harbor master we ever had at North Point.
Each month one of the docks holds a breakfast for the whole marina. The money for the food is provided by the marina. There was also Bloody Mary's available.
Jerry calling home. Yes those are palm trees. Here are some stats for Phase II of our trip from Mobile Bay, AL to Bradenton, FL.

10 days on the water.
570 miles on the water
Anchored once in the Gulf
Over 40 hours of engine time

The pool and hot tub area.
The statue of the Manetee and her cub is right in front of the marina.

And More Tarpon Springs

This is what low tides looks like at the city marina. The claim is that the full moon creates these big swings.

We had to move the boat forward to stay out of the mud.



Could these be terrorists? You can see that it's cold in Tarpon Springs.

More Tarpon Springs

Jerry Casey has his diving gear and did some diving while we were here. We are bring home some of the sponges he found.

Tarpon Springs

Now here is a nice boat to cruise with. A sail boat with twin screws. My kind of sail baot.
I needed some money so I ran a deep sea fishing business while I was in Tarpon Springs.
Check out the beard on this fisherman. Was he in ZZ Top?
Here we see a tour boat in dry dock. You can ride on this pirate ship in Clearwater beach area.
Check out this motorcycle. One's like this was used in a "Back to the Future" movies. At one time yoiu could buy these.
The town is getting ready for Christmas
The divers know how to party. Is this a beer keg or is it used for air?
Our alst night in town we had an Ozzo and listened to some Greek music.

Suwannee River and a night anchored in the gulf

Here we are on the Suwannee River heading down a canal to Miller's Marina. After we fueled up we asked what time we should leave the next day since the tides were very low near this full moon. The guy said I'd leave now or you'll be here for a couple of days. We headed right out and spent the night on the hook.

We're about 10 miles out in the Gulf South West of the Suwannee River. It was calm but we still didn't sleep well since the next day in the afternoon we would have 30MPH winds. We wanted to arrive at Tarpon Springs before noon.
Jerry loking for crab pots as we leave for Tarpon Springs at 4:45 AM.

Steinhatchee and the problems begin

Red right returning. Here is the channel into Steinhatchee. Here is where the poop hit the fan.
These air boats have only one foot of draft or less. They are very loud.
I called Gulf Stream Marina in the morning as we left Carabellee and asked if they had a slip and gas. They said yes. We called as we came in the channel and said we'd like to gas up at the fuel station before we go to our slip. As we arrived they had the hose out for us. It was well over a 100 feet from the pump. The guy helped us dock and we started to pump gas, or so we thought. Jerry went up to the pump to tell me when we hit 65 gallons. We were at 37 hallons when Jerry said "stop", we're pumping diesel. We now had to pump out that tank. We had to wait until the next day for someone to show up with a pump. This put us leaving there at 1:00 PM and we could only go to Suwannee River and Miller's Marina.

Ok boys and girls school starts now. On the right we have two fuel hoses can you pick the one that dispenses gas? Don't go by color but the size of the nozzle.

Gas on the left is smaller then the Diesel on the right. In cars we can't make that mistake since the Diesel will not fit in the filler tube.

On to Carrabelle

It looked like these guys lived along the waterway.









There were many, many beautiful places along the way.









Here is an example of the damage having a line in the water does.












A local "watering hole" in Carbelle










This is the main office at the Moorings in Carabelle. Very nice people. There is a dock guy named "Buddy" that is great at giving crossing advice.







At the Moorings they have a TV room with access to the internet and a pool table. A good hang out while you wash your clothes in a room just downstairs.





A nice Natavity scene in Carabelle.

More of Pananma City

Right near the marina they have a park with a tribute to the men and women killed in "911"

On our way to Carrabelle we passed a large tow bringing in a disabled ship.








We also ran into a little fog.

Pananma City

We left Pensacola for Panama City Marina. Hard to find but a nice marina. We also got to see the Christmas parade in town.

We soon found out we had to use the floor to work out navigation changes. Here you see Jerry working on the latest fix.

There is lots of shallow water in the Panama City area. As Maxwell Smart would say "the sailboat missed the marina by this much"

On the way to Panama City we went through many man made canals.

Here is Susan Darlene just in fromt of "Wale Rider". We have docked in the same area with this boat at other marinas.

The sun going down in Panama City.

Pensacola FLorida

Some nice houses as we approach Pensacola. The beaches are beautiful.











We docked in the Bahia Mar Marina. It is a very nice area because it was rebuilt after Ivan hit here.








Jerry and I did some fishing before we docked and had fish for dinner. Yes it is just another fish story.