After a day and a half of driving we finally arrive at "Beachside", a small community of 12 homes with a pool and tennis court on the beach. When housing 12 people this is the most ecconomical way to go.
The house we rented this year is beautiful and right on the beach. View of galley.
The house
Grandkids try out the net I made from an old volley ball net. You never know what treasures they will find.
My morning walk shortly after day break.
Pool at Beachside
Annual event is building the castle
Granddaughter Chloe showing off her Orange Beach T-shirt that the grandkids dye as one of the evening projects.
Evie burys Michael
Family room from balcony
Grandkids on ramp to Sea and Suds cafe on beach
Mandy, Evie, and Chloe on the front porch
Meeting in the loft
Grandma and Grandpa on the frount porch with Jon
cleaned the fish
Jon in the galley
One goal was to have Jon catch a fish, clean it, and fry it up. This is Snapper being fried as proof the goal was met.
Mandy's insulin pump broke on the way down to Alabama and she was very upset that she would have to go back to those shots that she didn't have to get since age 4. With the spare pump back in St Louis we couldn't get a replacement for 2 days. The good news was that when she found out how painless the shots are she chose to use shots and keep the new pump off until we headed for home.
View from the porch
When I called the ER, I told the Doctor at Foley Medical Center I knew all about heart attacks and gun shots but didn't know crap about Sting Ray stings. Should this ever happen to you DONT PUT ICE ON IT! The pain is terrible and is only relieved by submerging the foot in water as hot as you can stand it. After loosing a lot of blood and suffering severe pain, the hot water stopped the pain in 10 seconds. Son in law Rich, was back on beach fishing within 1/2 hour???
Spaggetti night
Walkway to beach over the dunes with the begining of our "tent city" in the backround.
Sorry I got carried away with the pictures. We're home now and heading to Port Charles and our boat. Next blog will be recalling trip from Bradenton Fla. to Clearwater accross Tampa Bay.
Early start to get acrost Tampa Bay before it "kicks up" as we've been warned of possible thunderstorms later in the day. Tom and Lisa left us yesterday and flew out of Tampa, home to St. Louis.
Its a strange feeling heading forTampa Bay all alone since we've had our friends traveling with us since we left Ft. Lauderdale. JoAnn and I are very comfortable traveling aboard alone as we've lived as long as 7 months aboard our last boat the "Free Spirit" traveling from St. Louis to Palm Beach and back...JPG)
The Skyway bridge is scary to drive over but not so threatening when on the level of the water.
Main problem crossing the Bay is that some of the water is very shallow and you have to stay in the marked channel. This picture is the Duneden Marina on the ICW after crossing the bay.
White Heron visiting with me on the Great Escape aft deck. This new friend followed me around after I gave him a piece of balonga.
Our slip at the Municipal dock in Tarpon Springs. The language among the residents here is Greek. Thats right , Greek!! They are descendants of the Greek sponge divers who came 100 years ago. The food here is awesome.
Ancalote river in backround. We waited several days here as we only cruise with seas less than 3 feet waves. This is our own rule that we, through experience, found to be comfortable. AND as luck would have it, NOAA weather isn't always correct in their predictions. My usual routine is to wake early and listen to the weather report and make a decision based on wave height, wind direction, and the distance the wind has traveled over the sea. The term for distance over sea wind is "fetch". The greater the fetch, the greater the wave action. If NOA says "waves 4-5 feet with 20 knots" wind I go back to bed and tell JoAnn that we have another day in paradise.
As we leave the Ancalote river and enter open water we leave the few small islands that guard the enterance to Tarpon behind us. The sun has just risen and its light enough to see the many floats that are attached to "crab pots" that fisherman put out. We will cruise 10 to 20 miles off shore to Stienhattache to avoid shoals and more crab pots. The trip was 120 miles and NOAA weather called it wrong. In spite of that calm water in the begining, we had a rather rough trip taking waves over the bow at times and with a strong wind on the port beam causing us to roll a lot. It really felt good to see land and find our way into the Steinhattache River after 9 hours of "rocken and rollen" out of sight of land.
Fishing boat in enterance to Steinhatche. This is a small fishing village on the "big bend" area of the Gulf of Mexico. The only store in town is a Dollar General that the locals call the "Steinhatche WalMart". There is one bridge over the river and thats the only place where a cell phone will work! Its not uncommon to see someone parked on the bridge to make a call. True diehard fishermen and their families come here, rent a cabin and fish. The one "fancy" resturand in town will prepare your catch for your dinner. We enjoyed our stay here as the people at the marina were very nice to us.
Sea Hog marina is the place to stay if your in a cruising boat. The other marinas are more for small fishinf boats. Our next blog will be about our experience on the north gulf coast Destin, Panama city etc. I already covered the trip from Steinhatche to Carrabelle Fla. In the "Blog in the Fog" blog. JoAnn and Dave. (currently "dirt dwellers")
Island Princes cruisw ship as seen from a tower in VanCouver.