Wednesday, 3/6/19 – Tarpon Springs Yacht Club, Tarpon Springs, Florida

Woke up to a beautiful sunny day but frrrreeezing – the “feel-like” temperature in the 30’s (so much for sunny/warm Florida) and AGAIN Scout was on the bottom. Scout has been becoming more intimate with the bottom more times than we’d like to remember. We are not used to moorings that have “skinny” water that occasionally put Scout high and dry.

In the words of Jimmy Buffet – Michael didn’t step on a pop top – but he did blow out a flip flop – didn’t cut his heel – but still had to cruise on to West Marine. We walked to West Marine in the Wally Mart shopping center for new flip flops– 10,095 steps to and fro. Stopped for a late lunch at a cute little place on the way back and continued the walk along the water where we saw about a half dozen Manatee (actually Manatee heads when they came up for air) in the cove area. That area is off limits to motorized boats so we couldn’t go back in Scout-About for a better look. Darn. We’re pretty sure they came here because of the cold weather today. Pretty cool.

Thursday, 3/7/19 – Tarpon Springs Yacht Club, Tarpon Springs, Florida

Beautiful day! My new-to-me camera came today and I’m so excited!!! Spent time reading the manual and getting acquainted with her. Can’t wait to get started but of course there are some downloads that have to be completed which is difficult to do on the boat. The dockmaster, Brian, brought his computer over and helped us download the software from the CD that came with the camera. How nice is he?

The ice maker part came today so Michael can complete that project and, of course, something was missing that he needs so off to Ace Hardware, on foot, today. There’s a great farmer’s market stand by Ace so stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies – nice! Oops, yet another trip to Ace Hardware today (9,666 steps for both). This time we decided to Uber back. Good news we are now making ice! Wahoo! The first trip to Ace we walked by the water front where we saw Manatee heads yesterday. Today we saw the whole bodies. Amazing – must have been a dozen of them.

We were invited up to the Club for Bingo tonight. Michael elected not to go but I went. The room was filled with white-haired ladies (which includes me) and a couple of men. When the game started you could hear a pin drop as the numbers were called. At our table of eight we had one winner of $12.00 and I won one of the raffle prizes (a discount for a ticket for next week’s game) which I gave to one of the ladies at my table. Great fun!

Friday, 3/8/19, Tarpon Springs Yacht Club, Tarpon Springs, Florida

Absolutely beautiful morning! Pulled away from the dock this afternoon about 12:50 for a two hour cruise to Dunedin (Dun E din). A really lovely trip, blue skies, warm weather and smooth seas! I have to admit I prefer these two hour sails over the eight hour days. Dropped the anchor off the town of Dunedin about 3:00. Michael was feeling a little under the weather so we just hunkered down and relaxed on the boat. Nice quiet calm night.

Saturday, 3/9/19 , Dunedin at anchor, Dunedin, Florida

Another beautiful day in paradise. We dinghied into town. OMG what a cute place! Lots of darling shops, restaurants, breweries, etc.  Also looks like a pretty healthy place with lots of joggers/walkers/bikers. And lots of dogs. Dogs everywhere! Definitely an adorable and welcoming town.

Some points of interest for fellow Loopers at the dinghy dock – there is a PDFOW (permanent dinghy full of water) locked to the dock you must navigate around in order to land without having to climb through the gangway handrails. Be careful of the sharp clam shells attached to the pilings on the dock behind the PDFOW that at low tide could damage your inflatable. Finally, don’t grab hold of the big metal hoop that holds the floating dock to the piling. We are sure you experienced loopers know but you could loose your fingers/hand if the floating dock happens to surge from an unexpected wake.

As we were walking back to the dinghy we noticed another Mainship 400 in the marina. It had a blue hull just like ours and they were flying a Looper flag. We knocked on the side of the boat to say hi and introduce ourselves. Brenda and Mike from Minnesota aboard Velsignet started the loop about the same time we did but in a different area. They were delightful and we had a nice time chatting and swapping boat stories. They were leaving for Tampa in the afternoon and we were headed to Clearwater. Hopefully we’ll meet again as we continue the Loop.

Sunday, 3/10/19, Dunedin at anchor, Dunedin, Florida

We pulled anchor this morning headed for Clearwater, Florida. Interestingly we had originally planned to stay at St. Petersburg Yacht Club but we cancelled our reservation. They are hosting the Havana Regatta next week. It would have been a kick to see the boats, people we might know and pre-race activity but that also meant they didn’t have many slips available. They had one opening on Monday, so we decided against it since the Clubhouse is closed on Mondays. We didn’t think that would be much fun and we decided to pass and head to Clearwater Yacht Club instead.

We had a short easy cruise of about an hour and arrived at the front dock of Clearwater Yacht Club at about 12:40. This is a small “laid back” Club surrounded by towering condos. Linda the dockmaster was there to greet us and guide us into our primo side-tide which is only about 30 feet from their Tiki Bar. Once secure we made our way, all of 10 steps, to the Tiki Bar Patio (dogs allowed) and had lunch. How convenient is that?  Then went for a walk-about. Not much in the way of shopping or cuteness here but the beach on the other side of the street is amazing. The sand looks like confectionaries’ sugar. When you step on it you sink down about two inches and it’s blindingly white and the water is crystal clear! Beautiful. The beach was absolutely loaded with bodies enjoying the great weather. Made our way through stopping several times to answer questions about our doggies.

Back to the boat for a little R and R. Around 6:30 walked the long-ten-steps to the Tiki Bar for a glass of wine great conversations with members before the 7:00pm close. Extremely friendly and welcoming Club and lots of good local knowledge about where to go and how to get there. Fun time!