Scratch the anchorage, again. Winds to pick up to over 30 Mph. Looking for marinas in 2022 is proving difficult. There are an abundance of purchased boats due to Covid and the northerners have brought their own boats down to Florida to “get away”. Add that to the fact that our boat is a larger size for a transient and it culminates into having a hard time finding storm dockage. We did find this great marina in Palmetto, across from Bradenton, FL. Riviera Dunes has a deep anchorage at a whopping 15 ft, floating docks, a restaurant called Dockside, power, water, and 360 degrees of protection. We are placed on the T dock which is fine for us.
Since we will be here a couple nights we find pickleball play and grab an Uber over. Great folks to play and decent games. They are building brand new courts, 20 of them under a roof. This will be the place to be in a year or so. There are condo units at the marina but not part of the marina that have 2 courts but not open to the public unless you become friends with a tenant.
It is a cold day with the Nor’easters constantly passing through bringing in the winds. It is only 46F or 7C here today and dropping to 37F or 3C tonight. We are following the sun but these temps are following us. It is cold here and the locals are not happy about it. It should be in at least the high 60’s at this point, and more.
We were invited to lunch with “KayDee”, fellow gold loopers (those that have completed the loop at least once), and joined a couple from the vessel “Online”. We have questions on local knowledge of getting to Marathon in The Keys and Online is heading that way too. So Mark and Karen from KayDee offer lots of local experience as they are from this area. Lunch at Dockside was good. They have a lunch menu til 3 which offers smaller portions including an all day breakfast.
The winds are slowing as we head back to the boat and start planning our departure for 7 in the morning. Scott gets a memo that his packages are coming in after the marina staff have left. Here they show the car and where it is as well as how many more stops til your drop off. At 5 dropoffs before he heads off to the front of the marina to meet the car so that we don’t have to wait until the staff comes in in the morning making us wait til at least 9. Bingo, it works. So now we plan for the skinny water that awaits us on the inside GIWW from Palmetto/Bradenton to Venice, FL.
