Tonight we are anchored next to the mooring field at the south Apollo Beach Basin in Tampa Bay; about 200 yards from our soon to be permanent dock for Sea Breeze. Last night anchored on "the hook". Our trip is over. Mixed emotions. Happy to be home and sad to be ending our adventure. We have talked long and late into the evenings about what to do next. No decisions yet, but lots of ideas and plenty of options to explore. The trip home from the Keys was a few days shorter than we planned due to the possible arrival of TS or hurricane Ida and the strong northerly winds produced by the squeeze beteeen her low pressure zone off Nicaragua to the west and the high over the southeast US. We felt we needed to beat any potential hurricane home. That's an ironic twist.......no storms at all during our travels down the east coast during prime hurricane season then a possible hurricane threat this late in the season now that we are home. The water between the Keys and Sarasota is so clear - emerald green to blue in deeper water, white in shallow. In some of our anchorages it seemed like we were anchored on emerald glass. Its easy to read the water depth in the inlets and channels by looking at water color. We could see star fish and spounges in the sand bottom in 10+ feet of water in the Keys; sharks, turtles and tarpon in 15'+ in the Gulf; turtles (not babies but big guys 3' diameter shells with grapefruit size heads). Flying fish and shrimp skipping along like flat rocks skipped on a calm pond. It isn't as clear as the water in the Bahamas or other Carib islands but it's a treat to us after the cloudy water north of Miami on the east coast. We loved the east coast, especially NC and the Chesapeake, but the water clarity of the FL Keys and west coast gets your attention. Sea Breeze is covered with salt today as we anchored in Apollo Beach. The past two days have produced strong northery winds that kicked up short and steep waves in Tampa Bay that we had to drive in to. We were often stopped dead in our tracks by waves that put Sea Breeze's nose pointing skyward then drove her into the next wave trough. Lots of spray. When we anchored tonight Sea Breeze, Diane and I looked like we were covered in talcum powder; actually it was salt. These past two days were probably our roughest weather of the trip but only because we had to head into the wind/waves. We experienced wind and waves this rough in NC and MD but there we had the option of just turing around and going down wind for a comfortable day long sail. Twenty to twenty five knots of wind and 3-4 foot short steep waves feel a whole lot different when you are going down wind instead of up wind. I guess the weather gods were telling us we should have turned around and returned to the Keys. Later. When I look back on the trip, no doubt the visiting of small out of the way towns and remote anchorages was the highlight of the trip. Of equal importance were the new friends we made along the way. Latest MAP.
Photo 1 - a little dark but this was our dockside neighbor in Venice
Photo 2 - our neighbor at anchor next so Sanibel Is.
