Dunedin, Florida

Monday, November 27, 2017

Dunedin, Florida

Day 221 … Mon, Nov 27, 2017 … 83.66 miles, 9.5 hours

Cedar Key Anchorage to Dunedin, Anchored by Marker One Marina

Starting out, we are not 100% sure where we will end up tonight. It will be a long day and our 1st and 2nd choices of a marina are full. We still have choices, just depends on how long we decide to run today. This will be the last really long day for quite a while, so we may push it and be done with it.

It was a rougher ride than we like for the first part of the morning. Nothing bad, just not fun. Cally does not like it when the boat rolls side to side a lot. SO … I sit with her and she leans into me and pushes off the side of the boat so she doesn’t slide around. Rip altered course (heading east inshore several miles) so evidentially things calm down and she goes back to her usual sleeping, I mean traveling, spot.We catch up with Kia Mae out in the Gulf, who went further than us last night but is going shorter than us today so they can see Jim’s brother. It was nice to have someone around again.

Lots of dolphin playing in our wake today.

We leave the Gulf today and enter the Florida ICW. But, first we snag our first crab pot. Rip saw it (I was below brushing my teeth) and left it well to starboard but the line from the float to the crab trap had been cut and was floating just below the surface along the water in our path. Rip slowed the boat immediately, which brought me up from below to see what was wrong (tooth brush and all). The line and pot pulled in toward the boat but then appeared behind us … no damage done and Rip resumed speed. I finished brushing my teeth.

We run all the way to Dunedin Municipal Marina (who are not taking boats over 17’)but there is an anchorage outside their seawall and we decided to use their dinghy dock to get Cally to shore. We know there is a nice park there. Going this far means we have relatively short days ahead to get to Punta Gorda where we have reservations for the entire month of December.

The town Christmas tree at the park. Their tree lighting ceremony and lighted boat parade are this coming weekend, we will be long gone.

Good night from Dunedin … it looks like a fun place where I would enjoy staying a day or two, but we are ready to move on south. We arrive too late and leave too early to partake of anything except the park for Cally.