St Pete to Key West 

October 7th, 2002, marked the beginning of a great adventure for us. Bob had planned for years to sail around the world. Last year,  after selling his business in Milwaukee, he sailed his boat down the rivers and across the Gulf of Mexico to St. Petersburg, Florida, beginning his voyage. I am an artist in St. Petersburg, who,  after an 8-year sailing experience with my late husband aboard a 23-foot sloop, planned to never set foot on a sailboat again.

How quickly our lives can change. Bob's dreams  matched my own in so many ways, and as he said, "You knew you would travel and paint all over the world, you just didn't think you'd be going by sailboat".

So here we are, beginning to live the dream, sharing the adventure.

We invite you to come along with us on our web site. We'll take photos, paint, write and share what we are lucky enough to experience at this time in our lives. We don't know how far we will go or for how long. Maybe only a month, maybe six months, maybe the full 16 years of Captain Bob's itinerary. Carpe diem!

Getting ready..... and, we're OFF!!!

Fantasy Fest   

October 19-26, 2002   Key West, Florida

We sailed from St. Petersburg for a peaceful harbor near Bradenton called The Moorings. Then on to Charlotte Harbor,  accompanied by several porpoises playing in our wake as we sought  anchorage the second night just off historic Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island. Whidden's Marina,  a colorful, local landmark offered us free dinghy tie-up for the day and we explored the charming town and waters.

After a  big breakfast at Loons on a Limb,  a favorite  restaurant, we motored down to Pelican Bay and anchored off State Park Cayo Costa. A  dinghy trip through

the "tunnel of love", an inlet passage from bay to beaches under a thick growth of mangroves, brought us to the island's pristine, deserted beach where missing a chance to skinny dip would have been a shame.

 On Cabbage Key, we ate the famous cheeseburger that inspired Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger in Paradise song and signed and added our own dollar bill to walls several layers thick with contributions of many visitors. 

 The following night we anchored off Picnic Island where we watched a dramatic sunset

and sipped Patton's new and already-famous-with-Bob cocktail, the Prom Queen (one part any kind of rum, one part Crystal Light lemonade, two parts orange juice and a splash of Grenadine. ) Warning:  more than two Prom Queens in the galley chef can cause "iffy" dinner results.

In Ft. Myers' picturesque harbor

 we anchored near the bridge and looked for the free dinghy dock mentioned in our cruising guide. Finally we found the spot,  a small white house flying a large American flag at its dock on the Estero Island side of the harbor. The owner welcomes visiting cruisers from his front porch, generously offers unlimited docking and directions for dumping garbage. 

Breakfast at Kristine's proved worthy of the recommendation in our guidebook also and was within easy walking distance of  dinghy tie-up at a nearby marina.

Suffering from unseasonably hot, humid weather for October, we voted for docking in Naples for two nights to cool off and get some shopping and laundry done. The marina's loaner bicycles         gave us the chance for  touring and for biking to the supermarket to load plastic bags of groceries and supplies over our handle bars.

I had a chance to get out my watercolors and paint a scene of the city marina before walking a few blocks that evening to dine at the Naples Yacht Club. This required carrying my dressy heels in a plastic bag, changing in the ladies room and checking my deck shoes at the coat room. Most of the club members were elderly and elegant. Most probably have not boated for some time and were no doubt amused by the "boat people" from St. Pete. The club was beautifully decorated, but service was extremely slow and the food average. It's always fun, though, to take advantage of Bob's Milwaukee Yacht Club reciprocity as we travel, and see how clubs differ from port to port.

An  overnighter to the Dry Tortugas was rough going with four-foot seas, wind and salt spray over the bow and into the cabin. On radar watch I lay on my stomach along the back seat, holding the bimini supports for dear life as we pitched and rolled  through the night. On Bob's watch, a large cluster of shrimp boats  lit up the radar screen and he was at the helm constantly to wend his way through. I lay on the state room bed, bracing my feet against the far wall to keep from being thrown onto the floor. This wasn't going to be the night for trying out my new Starry Night computer program given to us by Sandy and Brad in St. Pete  for identifying constellations, stars and planets.

Two great days in the little harbor at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas made it all worthwhile. We toured the fort, swam, walked the beach to the bird sanctuary and marveled at the size of a huge grouper who had nestled next to Polaris upon her arrival and did not leave until we pulled anchor.

Fantasy Fest in Key West was a fitting climax to this leg of our voyage. Bob's good friend from Milwaukee, Bob Mueller, joined us for four days to experience this wild, fun-filled annual festival. We anchored off Fleming Key and took the dinghy in several times a day and night to try to do and see everything on the agenda. Fantasy Fest pictures (at left) will speak for themselves without any help from me.

From here we head up  the east coast of Florida to Melbourne and the annual meeting of the Seven Seas Cruising Association, taking a couple of weeks and easy day cruises to arrive there. 

Until we visit again, fair winds.