Lazy Days Gone By

Well here we are in Tarpon Springs, Sponge Capital of the World. We left our anchorage in Cedar Key on Tuesday. We arrived here last night and are staying until noon tomorrow. Then we are off to Dunedin and then Manatee River.

Restaurant/Bar row Cedar Key Fl

It was pretty lazy in Cedar Key. We normally went to shore once a day to walk Sissy, and explore. I have been practicing my use of the Sextant by taking a shot of Polaris every night with fairly good results. In Cedar Key we were at 29’07 N and I had been getting about 29’25 with the Sextant.  Close enough to find an Island I guess, I still have lots to learn and plenty more practice to do. I have also been working on our outboard motors. Our 20 hp Johnson steering froze up. Apparently you have to grease it 6 times a day in salt water, but with a 6 pack of elbow grease, some practice cussing like a sailor, and a tube of normal grease I finally persuaded it to work again.   I have also been practicing on the SSB Radio. Mainly been listening to AFN network from Key West.   We see lots of dolphins every day, which still hasn’t gotten old and we are still eating the fish I caught on the way here. Maybe two more days and it will  be gone. On the way here I also caught a whopping 400 watt wind generator. So yeah now Jen has been giving me a really hard time because she is the only one that is small enough to get up there and untangle the line. Oops.

In Cedar Key we had dinner one night with Ricky and Aaron. It was a fun reunion for Jen and good to meet them for Marilyn and I. We had a great time. We showed them our boat, then had dinner at a local place with a good band, and where Sissy was welcome.

On our trip here to Tarpon Springs I had checked three different weather sources and everything looked great, 8 knots in the day and around 15 that night. The day forecast was right on, but at night the winds picked up to 25-28 all night long with 4-6 foot swells hitting us broadside. We tried several different sail arrangements and ended up reefing our staysail only. We also tried laying ahull and couldn’t get our boat to stop, with our smallest sail we still did 1.8 knots. Needless to say we had a very bumpy and uncomfortable night.

When we got here to Tarpon Springs we walked the ten steps to the bar at the head of the dock and had lunch and a celebratory beer. (That’s Sandy Dreams at the end of the Bar, too bad you can’t find your way to Florida Tyson, then you could count the steps yourself.)

 

Then Jen and Marilyn went exploring downtown while I tried to straighten up the boat. Today we went shopping for sponges and had Greek food for dinner.

  

Marilyn & Jen had Mousaka and I had Makaronada.

 We stopped at a courtyard where they had live music it was a son and father band. The kid is 13 and awesome! He could play the bongo drums, several harmonicas, and sing. The mom said that he is cast in a movie and will be playing the harmonica in it. We may have to rent that movie. Jen wanted to keep him she said he was “cute as a button” whatever that means. We bought their CD so Jen wouldn’t kidnap him.

Dakota playing the drums

(Doug- you have some strong competition.)

Next Update – Dunedin, a crazy 7 miles away.

Wish us luck.

Another Stowaway.

A real working Sponge Boat.

A fake Greek Sponge diver.

 

A real Greek Lady selling sponges.