THE MAIDEN VOYAGE / September 10, 2015

Our first trip without another Captain.  The purpose was for me to get more experience driving and docking.  So we took a quick trip to Long Boat Key Club in Sarasota.  

Another gorgeous day on the water.  The dolphins love our boat, they love to surf our wake.  I drove pretty much the whole way, we left Thursday September 10th at 1 and arrived at 4.  But I did not dock, we felt the slip was just to narrow for me to maneuver.  

Long Boat Key Marina is kind of expensive, but you get what you pay for.  It has a very nice restaurant, ship store, bath house, laundry and pool on premises.  You also have access to the resort which you can get to buy a shuttle that runs anytime you need it.

The first night, Mike had pizza and I had stuffed mushrooms at the marina restaurant, which were both very good.  

On Friday we took the shuttle to St. Armand's Circle shopping district.  We bought some cruising clothes and some yummy nuts.  Had lunch at a French restaurant.  We waded in the pool for a couple of hours and met a couple from Palm Harbor on a weekend trip in their 34 foot Sea Ray. We had leftover pasta for dinner on the boat, watched a little football and went to bed.

Saturday we took the shuttle to the Ringling Museum.  It was more interesting than I thought it would be.  He loved Italian art and culture, their house looks like an Italian Villa. They have quite the art collection, huge banyan trees and a lovely rose garden. We learned he bought and started St. Armand's Circle so his wife would not have to go far to shop.  He even had a boat in the Gasparilla parade in the 1930's.

 I did not know that John Ringling was nearly broke when he died.  But he did have the foresight to bequeath the entire 66 acre property to the state of Florida, so now we all can learn and enjoy the history of the circus in America.   

We left Sunday around 9, the weather was a little iffy,  we had hoped what we saw on the radar would have moved on by the time we got back home.  No such luck.  But it was probably a good lesson on how the boat handles rough seas.  She fared pretty well. And it was the first time we drove from the Pilot House so that was fun as well.  We did get blown out of the channel a little and ran aground.  But luckily the wind and waves pushed us back and we were going pretty slow so we don't think we did any damage to the props.  We will find out pretty soon, when we haul it out to be repainted.

We did make it home safe and sound in about 3 hours.  On the way home was when I made the decision that Mike is going to dock us 99% of the time.  If there is an emergency I think I can dock us bow first, but it's the backing in I don't think I'll ever learn.  I think I'll just handle the lines from now on. 

This model circus was huge and very intricate.