January 6: Caladesa State Park - near Dunedin, FL

After a storm rolled through most of the night, we awoke to dreary skies and a light mist. Might as well go to breakfast to wait out the sun which was scheduled! Sean and Hazel from Stella Maris joined us (they were the lead boat for our overnight crossing) so that was nice as we had a chance to get to know them a little better. They are headed for the Exumas and points south. Leaving town we passed all of the sponge boats again docked right along the main street of Tarpon Springs. LOVE the new printer! The old inkjet that neither computer could even hook up to anymore will not be missed :-) I can pull up the chart for our destination, magnify as much as needed and just hit the "print screen" button on the printer and out it comes. This is really nice as the GPS on the flybridge is quite small and it's hard to get a larger perspective sometimes. The state park marina we are staying at tonight and tomorrow night is inside a mangrove area so it was kind of fun coming in. There was a nice sign to welcome everyone but we are the ONLY boat here! The boat next to us belongs to a couple who volunteer here at the park for the winter. In exchange, they are provided a slip for the boat and then in summer, they travel back up to Vermont. Neil provided us a welcome helping hand as we came in - the wind was blowing and we decided somewhat late that we needed to back into the dock. I'm getting better at backing into a dock but still not great with it! Neil said the marina was pretty much filled the week between Christmas and New Year's as the weather was nicer. In Steve's reconnaissance walk of the park, he found some interesting info about how they set fire to the park on occasion - and saw the burned trees from pervious fires - also a sign of what kind of animals that might be encountered during a hike around the park. (You'll have to double click on the sign to read it - sounds like some interesting animals are around.) The beach was very nice with tons of shells. Fortunately Steve resisted the urge to collect any! The park is on a barrier island so the beach is actually on the Gulf. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and mid 60's so we're planning on breaking out the kayaks as there is a marked trail through the mangroves. Will report back on that tomorrow!