January 7, 2015 Marina Jack’s Sarasota to Cape Haze

We got all off the necessary projects completed yesterday for today’s departure. Pumped out the holding tank and returned some charts to Wally on Beulah Belle and said our good byes. We departed the marina at 9:11 and headed back out into the intercoastal waterway. It is not difficult navigation but you do have to pay attention to the markers and not wonder out of the channel. It gets shallow very quickly if you do. We passed under many bridges heading south so far. Because our height is 19 feet most of the bridges we go underneath without them opening. This saves us time because some bridges open on a schedule on the hour and half hour or quarter past and quarter to the hour. If you nmiss the scheduled opening you have to wait until the next scheduled opening. Well today we had to have two bridges open for us. Luckily they both open on demand and are not on a schedule. The first was a lift bridge but the second was a swing bridge that the operator had to go to the center of the bridge to work the controls to open the bridge,. Very cool and very different.

The swing bridge in open position

 

The bridge tender on the open bridge

 

We arrived at an anchorage in Cape Haze, fl at 1445. Colletta had picked this out of the cruising guide and an internet program called Active Captain. We had heard of a forecasted gale warning for today night and high winds tomorrow so we were looking for a place that was well protected from the wind. We let out 75 feet of anchor chain and anchored in 12 feet of water.

Because of the high winds, we decided to say in this horseshoe shaped anchorage for a second day.  With the winds blowing fiercely, and the full moon at night, that makes the low tides very low.  While listening to the radio we heard of 2 boats that had run aground just 2 miles north of us.  We were glad to be in our safe little anchorage.  We used the day to do some maintenance:  window washing, inside cleaning and………