We're in Palmetto. Yea!

Hello All:

We finally got a couple of really good weather days and crossed the Gulf from Steinhatchee to Clearwater. It is about 120 miles. We left at dawn and arrived close to dusk. The water was a little rough early in the morning but smoothed out as the day went on.

Yesterday we cruised the Intercoastal Waterway from Clearwater to Palmetto. We'll be here at Riveria Dunes Marina until the end of March. Today we are renting a car and driving back to Steinhatchee to get ours. We are planning to stop in Tarpon Springs for lunch - love that Greek food. I'll try to get pictures of the sponge fishing boats. We loved the ICW and are glad that we did not go outside. It takes a little longer but it was more interesting. We did not have any problems with bridges. There was only one railroad bridge that had to open for us. One highway bridge was really close. We had only about a foot to spare. Crossing Tampa Bay was no problem with calm waters and pretty good markings.

We are having a little problem with our navagation electronics - it is giving us about a 10 degree variance. That is something we'll have to work out.

I left the cord to dump pictures onto the computer at home so will have to show those to you later. We're going home around the 4th or 5th of January for a week. Would love to hear from everyone.

Happy New Year to all. See you out there somewhere!
Rob & Ann