Cabbage Key!

This is the view from the top of the water tower that Ken talked about!  You could see for miles!!  Such a beautiful spot to end a great day on the water.  We are glad to be moving again!

We climbed the water tower, hiked the nature trail and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the Old House Restaurant!

For years visiting fishermen passing to and from local tarpon-fishing hot spots have taken rest and refreshment here.  The story goes that to guarantee a cold beer on their return, they started the tradition of posting signed dollar bills on the Old House bar and restaurant walls.  Every square inch of wall is covered with dollar bills, now adding up to more than $50,000!!!

We were the only customers in the restaurant and had wonderful service from Amy!  Always have to try the Key Lime Pie!

If your travels take you to this part of Florida, grab a water taxi and come to Cabbage Key.  It is worth the trip!  The people are friendly and the food is fabulous!

Livin’ the dream!  Pat

We found the cache!

Today we traveled 53 miles from Sarasota to Cabbage Key. Our run across Charlotte Harbor was a little rough to say the least. We had a 15 MPH wind on our port side, and traveled in 3’ beam seas. Reminded us of the ’50’s with all the rock and roll!  When we pulled in to Cabbage Key, I could not get into the slip! No matter how hard I tried, the boat just would not back down like it was supposed to. Finally Pat asked if I had shut off the auto pilot. DUHHHHH - the rudders were hard to port, trying to keep us on our heading to Fort Meyers. No wonder I was having trouble. The dock master took pity on me, and let me do a tie along. Made no difference, as we are the only ones here.

Pat will tell you more about Cabbage Key in another post, but I am going to tell you about finding the Cache! Cabbage Key is an island accessible only by boat. It has a bar / restaurant, and some guest cottages. Their water supply is provided by a water tower in the center of the island, fed from an artesian well. This is the last remaining water tower in the area. All the others have been destroyed by hurricanes. Everyone is invited to climb the 41 steps to the top for the view. Pretty impressive!

Of course,  Inspector Ken can’t stop inspecting! I had to check out how this thing functioned. First thing I noticed was a nice valve system at the base. 

And a very sturdy 4” pipe up to the reservoir. 

When we get to the top, I notice what appears to be some hurricane damage! Sure hope it holds up all that water above us!

I look up and see the main 4” pipe enter the bottom of the tank, but there is another smaller pipe in front of the beam. What is that for? I can’t see where it goes. The plywood blocks my view, and its too high to see above. So I use the old Inspector trick. The camera can see where you can’t!

Well, looks like the smaller pipe dead ends on top of the plywood with a shut off valve. Maybe a drain?? But what is that thing laying there??

I take it down, and it has five words stamped in it:

Hanna Montana, and Made In China. I suspect it is a guitar case for a Hanna Montana doll set.

I open it up, and find a roll of paper around a golf pencil. 

Turns out it is a Geo Cache! Geo Caching is the process of hiding an object, and posting a GPS coordinate on the internet giving an approximate location along with verbal clues. Then when people find it, they sign the enclosed papers, and put it back. Geo Caching has become a large recreational activity in the past few years. I looked into it, but have never done it. 

We signed the cache, and put it back in its home for the next geo catcher to find.

Guess you have to be an inquisitive inspector type to understand!!!

Captn Ken

The natives are restless!

Last night was our last night in Sarasota. Pat had heard from her friend Judy that every Sunday evening, there is a “Drum Circle” on Siesta Key beach. We decided to take a dinghy ride over and check it out.
Anyone who plays drums is invited to join in. I bet Pats co-worker Billy at Fairview would enjoy it! He is a drummer! Hundreds of people gather in a circle on the beach to watch. Anyone who wants to dance, to pass sticks, hula hoop, belly dance, etc. joins in. It was quite festive!  They start at 4:00PM, and go until 10:00 PM. Young and old all joined in the fun!

As the sun dropped into the ocean, we headed back for a nice moonlight ride home.

Today we head out of Sarasota. We will stop tonight at Cabbage Key - a quaint little island only accessible by boat, then on to Fort Meyers, where we will spend a couple of days with our friends Jim & Linnea, and Dave & Pat from our home marina Ole Miss. They are down for a months stay. Then on to Marathon where we will catch up with a bunch of our Looper friends.

Speaking of our home marina, I received an e-mail yesterday from our friend Phil Brandt. After being cancer free for three years, his lymphoma has re-appeared. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, and visit his Caring Bridge site.

Captn Ken

Our last week in Sarasota!

January is coming to a close and we are spending our last days in Sarasota.  Every Saturday Sarasota has a wonderful farmers market that is several blocks long.  These are pictures from our visit this morning.  Tasty treats and wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables!  Love it!

This week we met Karl and Karen from Tortuga Azul for lunch at C’est La Vie.  We had met them up on Lake Barkley in September.  They were bringing their boat down from their marina in Milwaukee.  They now will live year round in Osprey, FL just 10 miles south of Sarasota.  We had a great visit and they were kind enough to drive us to their home to cut a couple of pieces of scrap lumber for Ken to finish his battery project!  They live in a lovely development with a great marina!  We did a couple errands on the way back to the boat and we so appreciated their taxi service.

Yesterday Jean and Ron came to have lunch and tour the 20BUCK$.  Jean is the sister of my good friend Judi and she and Ron are spending 6 weeks on Anna Marie Island.  It was so nice to see friends from home!  I told Jean I would make her famous on the internet!!

We have enjoyed our stay in Sarasota but are really ready to get moving again.  We will leave on Monday to head towards Ft. Myers to visit with friends from our marina for a couple days.  We will stop a couple spots on the way down to anchor in a particularly beautiful area and spend a night at Cabbage Key, only reachable by boat.

We will then head south to Marathon in the Keys where we will spend the rest of February! 

These feathered friends have been our constant companions since we arrived in Florida waters.  I am sure they will continue to keep us company as we head further south!

We love hearing from friends and family at home so if you have a free moment drop us an email and tell us what you are up to! 

Pat

patgoewey@gmail.com

kengoewey@gmail.com

Dolphins, dinghy ride, dinner theater and disease!

As we were heading out for a dinghy ride through the canals of Siesta Key we were greeted by three dolphins.  I captured two with the camera!  They are really hard to successfully photograph!  Part of the reason is I am so excited each time I see them, I am never ready with the camera!  When you are in the dinghy the dolphins are really close to the boat!

The canals of Siesta Key were so beautiful!  The houses range from old, original modest homes to mansions!  The boats also are interesting!  Ken thought the trolling motors attached to the trim tabs were particularly interesting.  Had to duck and lower the radar arch on the dinghy to get under the bridge!

Including a few pictures that were taken on our dinghy ride through the canals.  We have sure lucked out with the weather!

Sarasota has several small theaters so when we arrived we checked out the venues and plays showing and decided on the Golden Apple Dinner Theater!  We chose the musical “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” based on all the songs from the 60’s written by Neil Sedaka!  Remember the title song plus “Where the Boys are”, “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen”, “Stairway to Heaven” and many more!  It was very entertaining and well done!

The last “D” in the title is disease!  We both have had the respiratory crud.  Living in a small space doesn’t allow the other person to escape catching it.  Hopefully we are on the mend so the last couple days we have enjoyed the marina, the sun , drugs and kleenex!

The boat above left the marina today!  It is a 64’ Azimut named Copacetic! The captain lives on the boat.  He left today to take it to the Miami boat show.  The owner owns a fancy condo here in Sarasota that he has never been to and has only been on the boat once.  It is a 2012 and has 150 hours on it.  He tells the captain to move it here or there and now to the boat show as he wants to sell it and buy a bigger one!   Pretty good deal for the captain but so hard to relate to this kind of wealth!  I guess I don’t have to worry because I won’t ever live that life style.  We however continue to live our dream!   Pat

Welcome Brian and Melissa!

We rolled out the welcome mat for Melissa and Brian who arrived on Thursday, January 12 and stayed through the weekend!  It was great to have them here!  The weather remained sunny but was cooler than we would have liked.  Cool enough that we couldn’t enjoy the outside sidewalk restaurants and we didn’t go swimming but we had a great time! 

The picture above is of the new flip flop mat replacing the original mat made out of flip flops.  Wires that could really make a mess out of your foot were sticking out of the mat.  Time to recycle it and get a new one!

As Ken posted we spent the first day at the Ringling Museum!  Brian and Melissa are standing in the banyan forest on the grounds of the museum property. 

The rose garden was gorgeous, not in full bloom this time of year but blooming enough to demonstrate its beauty!

The famous statue of the “Kiss” created after the photo taken of the nurse and the soldier embracing at the end of the war stands at the edge of Marina Jack!  Of course we had to reenact the statue!  You can see  how big the statue is by how small Brian and Melissa are!

Day 2 we headed out on 20BUCK$ for a cruise out to the gulf.  Our intent was to go out “New Pass”, cruise down the gulf waters past the Siesta Beach and then back into the intracoastal waterway via “Big Sarasota Pass”.  Best intentions, right!  Local knowledge had told us that they always recommend Big Sarasota Pass because New Pass is narrow and has some shallow water depths!  They thought with our 3’ draft we could make it though!  Well.......we almost made it!  About 2/3 of the way through we had showed 2’ on the depth finder which is really 4’ of water but the captain decided it was silly to continue and risk bumping the bottom so we turned around and headed out Big Sarasota Pass.  The wind was blowing pretty hard and the ride was less than relaxing, lots of mixed up seas and of course the crab pots that just added to the angst!  It was a short ride and an uncomfortable ride but we made it safely back to the dock!  Not a very good first experience for Brian and Melissa in big water on the 20BUCK$!

The last day we headed to the beach at Siesta Key!  As you can see we were not in bathing suits but we enjoyed the beautiful beach, the sun and ocean for the afternoon.   The seagulls are many on the beach.  This particular one was not there this day but on a previous day!  She or he with feathers standing on end was just squawking to beat the band at her/his partner!  What a riot!

We said farewell to Brian and Melissa on Monday and Mom had some more tearful moments as they drove away!  That is the hard part of the trip.....I am away from my wonderful son and daughter in law!

Our friends Jan and Rusty aboard CBAY arrived at Marina Jack over the weekend!  Last night we went to Yoder’s Amish restaurant for dinner.  WOW......home cooked meals that were HUGE and delicious plus they are famous for their pies as demonstrated by their sign out front!  If you can’t read it, it says “Keep Calm and Eat more Pie!”  We did just that!
Rusty  and Jan left today but I am sure we will meet up again along the way!

The weather today is gorgeous so I will sign off and go enjoy it!

Pat