Sunday December 1: Anchored in Blackburn Bay - North of Venice

We were up and off of the mooring ball long before the clouds were yesterday and the sun stayed hidden until nearly noon.

The idea was to drop the dinghy in the morning so we could get Steve some live shrimp - he had in mind repeating his fishing success at the park to which we were headed for the night.

Sadly, it was so cool and windy that he decided to forgo the dinghy trip. We probably would have been soaked by splashing by the time we made it to the bait place and back - to say nothing of the lost hour of time to get everything down and back up.

So off we went and as we turned the corner about 5 miles down the waterway, what do we see but a live bait boat!! And, yes, he has live shrimp!!

Easy decision to float while he brought the shrimp to us in the smaller boat. Now we're ready for fishing!

Saw more of our favorite white pelicans standing in shallow water off of the channel. Sadly we hardly ever see any flying. It seems that only the brown pelicans are out flying around, diving quickly into the water to catch a fish. We call them the kamikaze pelicans. I'm sure someone has studied how their brains can survive such impacts and incorporated the findings into making better football helmets.

Apparently though the white pelicans (which NEVER dive for fish) just sit around and wait for fish to swim by and then they gobble the fish up. No flying/diving for the white pelicans. Strange.

By the time we arrived at Cayo Costa State Park, the sun was out and it was a nice day - until it clouded over and started misting! Still there was time for a bike ride to the beach.

This is a really nice area - the sign by the beach says "Welcome to the REAL Florida"! They might be right.

Steve headed off for the point. Someone needed to wait to make sure we knew our way back so I of course volunteered .....


That point just looked too far away and after you've seen 50 feet of a beach, the rest looks the same anyway, right?

That's my story anyway.

So yesterday we traveled 42 miles and then today another 35. We're slowly closing in on Bradenton - should arrive tomorrow - Monday.

Tonight we're anchored just off of the channel in a 5 foot area in Blackburn Bay. Not much around but it'll be a good place for the night.

Steve's fish? Sure enough, he managed to again land a sheepshead (not the Lake Erie kind) on his live shrimp bait. It made a nice appetizer tonight :-)


And finally, a sunset over the western shoreline.