Sunday October 23: Time to Go Again

We've  really enjoyed the last few days relaxing and getting a few things done.

We've also relearned the idea of 3 1/2 foot tides! This is the first dock we've tied to that wasn't floating so as the tide goes up and down so does the boat!

It is crazy with the remains of the full moon (which produces high highs and low lows).

The boat goes from too high to even stop off to so low that you have to step down to the boat. There is a real art to tying up the boat in these kinds of tides and Steve has it down perfectly! It's an art that he learned pretty quickly when we first traveling in the southern waters.

We've been tied up at the fuel dock at Pete's Pier here in Kings Bay at the eastern end of the Crystal River.  The marina wanted to put us in a covered slip - which is normally welcomed - but there was no way our satellite dish could see the SW sky. Too many football games this weekend to not have TV!

Most important thing? Some close restaurants for a change! Sara's Diner for breakfast and Thai Phoon for Thai lunch!

And West Marine, Big Lots and Save-a-lot grocery store all a 10 minute bike ride away - perfect :-)

Steve scored on a new pedestal for the captain's chair on the flybridge. West Marine and on sale for 1/2 price! Can't beat that.

First remove the old one which rocked like crazy because the vertical tube was loose in the round base.

No problem on the rivers coming down from Chicago but definitely an issue in rough water. Way too wobbly.


Might be one of the easiest projects we've done! Fortunately we didn't use the impossible to remove 5200 caulk when we first installed the seat and the holes in the new base actually matched up with the holes in the old base!


Put the seat on and good to go :-) Still a very comfy seat even after all of these miles.

The second project was to fix the corner piece of teak in the aft railing. The intricate way the entire railing is made is very interesting with bends and curves as the straight lengths connect to the curved pieces.

But the reward for the day's work was the final batch of oysters from Apalachicola for Steve. I'm quite sure it was worth it!!

The stay here at Crystal Springs was nice. We actually even put the dinghy down and took a short ride around the area.




Manatee are the big thing here. Because of the natural springs in this area putting out millions of gallons of water out per day, the water is always at 72 degrees.

Personally I don't think that's very warm but apparently the manatees like it! This is where hundreds gather in the winter to get out of the cold waters of the gulf.  Clearly some manatee have never heard of Banana Bay in the Keys :-) For more info about manatees, click here.


Finally time to move on though. Weather reports look good to move on to Tarpon Springs - the Greek city of Florida. It's a long day of 75 miles so we'll stay a couple of days.