We had left Clearwater and had an anchorage in mind on the way to St. Petersburg, however the winds were blowing and we decided to just carry on to St. Petersburg and hopefully find some better shelter there. We had to go through several draw bridges on the way and ended up following a couple of sailboats on the way. We made good timing through them regarding their opening schedules. Sometimes they open on the half hour or only on the quarter hour. We made it through the last of the bridges and turned north to come up the west coast of the Tampa Bay. St. Petersburg is described in Wikipedia as: ” With an average of some 361 days of sunshine each year, and a Guinness World Record for logging the most consecutive days of sunshine (768 days between 1967 and 1969), it is nicknamed “The Sunshine City”. Due to its good weather and low cost of living, the city has long been a popular retirement destination, although in recent years the population has moved in a much more youthful direction. American Style magazine ranked St. Petersburg its top mid-size city in 2011, citing its “vibrant” arts scene.” The town really is pretty awesome.
Our arrival brought us to another unfamiliar port. The city has three basins, which are separated by land, and two are connected behind a break wall. The third (north) basin is closed due to construction by the city to rebuild their municipal marina and mooring field. Lauren’s research had shown there are city docks available next to a waterfront restaurant that charges $1/ hour but they do not allow overnight docking. We found our way into the central basin and wound our way toward the restaurant Fresco’s. We saw there were only a few slips open, and only one was big enough for us and it was right next to the packed restaurant patio and it was open. Whew. Now that we were in the marina, which is about as large as our marina at home, we were sheltered out of the wind. We made a good, easy landing and secured the ship with everyone watching us. It being a Saturday afternoon, I don’t think I saw an empty table out there. No show from us today! Lauren took Frank as I fiddled with the lines to make sure we were good. There was an automated payment machine to pay for the dock, but it was out of order. Lauren and Frank returned, and I walked up to the next marina to see about staying the night as it says to do online. The building I went to was not the office, and I got to chatting with a tour boat captain for a few minutes and he told me where I needed to go. I took the info and went back to Klondike to retrieve the dinghy, as the office is across the marinas so boat would be quickest way across. When I came back to the boat, Lauren was chatting with some people in a boat that was docked next to us. It turns out they were from Beachwood and regulars at Hyde Park! We chatted a bit and then I had to make my way to the office to see if I could get permission for overnight docking. The women in the office explained they cannot take transient boats due to the construction, but said we could dock next to the restaurant. I asked about paying, and she said if the machine is broke- it’s free. Cool! As far as the overnight was concerned, she said she couldn’t give ‘permission’ but she hasn’t heard of anyone getting kicked out. Hmm… I think we’ll take our chances tonight…
Once I was back and we agreed to see what happens, I got the bikes out and we headed out to see what we could get in to. The weather was hot, almost 80 degrees and with no wind off the water, it felt great. We headed toward downtown and found a great bike trail which snaked through downtown and continued past Tropicana Field. We were heading to a cidery that we were interested in: Three Daughters Brewing. Again, this being a Saturday afternoon and the weather being perfect, there were a ton of people out and about everywhere. The brewery has a giant Christmas village display which takes them two months to set up! It goes on and on… We had some cider and decided we should continue on. We found another place that we had to stop at called If I Brewed The World. There we realized we were in the midst of a bar(k) crawl so everyone had on ugly Christmas sweaters and most had their dogs. It was a fun, festive atmosphere. From there we continued past some other breweries but had decided to stop at Pinellas Ale Works, or PAW for short (see what they did!), with beers called Piddle Pils, Wet Nose Wheat and Off the Leash to name a few. Again this place had a few dogs in attendance. Now we were heading back to the boat and cruised past so many more breweries and cool areas, we knew we would be spending a few days here.
Day 2- We woke up to the sound of servers setting up the patio next to us. No one had bothered us last night, but we didn’t run the generator last night due to people sitting on the patio. We didn’t want to be rude and have the fumes coming out, so we just conserved our power through the night. Now it was Sunday morning, the sun was shining, and we figured we should probably leave the dock and not push it too far. The office ladies had told me people do anchor out in front of the basin, behind the break wall sometimes and it should be okay to do that since they couldn’t take the transients, even though there is a sign close by that says “No Anchoring By City Ordinance”. Since we wanted to stay in town a couple of more days, we decided to leave the bikes locked to a bike rack next to the restaurant and take the boat to the anchorage. We left the dock as they were opening, and we headed out to the anchorage. When we turned the corner, we saw a large trawler anchored out, but there was plenty of room for us. We found a spot a short ways away from them and dropped anchor. Once we were sure we were holding tight, I took the dinghy over to the other yacht to say hello. I chatted with them a short while and then made my way back to our boat. We hung out for awhile and enjoyed the sunshine. We were watching shore and saw some people with dogs setting up a Christmas display with large gift wrapped boxes, then Santa arrived! There were people coming up and getting pictures taken with their dogs, so we decided to dinghy to shore and see if we could get Franks picture taken too! Once we had a good picture, we returned to Klondike for showers and to get ready for more exploring of St. Pete’s. Our plan was to find a place to watch the Browns. Since it was a 4pm kick off, we had some time and didn’t have to rush. We biked around and found a bar called Park and Rec. It had every game on, so we ordered some refreshments and a pizza to wait for the game to start. About forty minutes later, I had to flag down a bartender to inquire about our pizza, and the Browns game. She found our food and put the game on for us. F the Browns. I wish I didn’t get so angry and wished they didn’t suck so bad, but they do and I did. By halftime, we had decided we would find somewhere else to go for a change of venue. We continued on and found another brewery: Cycle Brewing. There were no TV’s, so we enjoyed a beer then carried on. There is a large place next to Tropicana Field called Ferg’s Sports Bar. This place is huge, and had every game on. We found a TV for the last quarter, and finished watching the debacle we call a football team. After this, we made our way back to the boat to retire for the evening.
Day 3- We had another nice day ahead of us so we returned to the bikes to go explore some more. We rode for a bit along the waterway and found ourselves in a real fancy neighborhood. We admired the homes and then made our way back toward downtown. We stopped and walked around a historic district with small shops up and down the street. We got a some fancy ice pops and walked around some more. We now had to find a Walgreens to have our Christmas cards made. We biked around and found one not too far away. We dropped the pics off and had some time to kill while we waited. Of course, there was another brewery not too far. We went there: Overflow Brewery. The place looks a little scary form the outside, but we walked in to some good reggae playing and good vibes. We enjoyed our beverages and returned to Walgreens to pick up our cards. We picked these up and had made plans to see an old friend later. We made our way back to Three Daughters, as I had been thinking of the cider we had there. ON the Way, we stopped for some food at Bodega. It is a small shop with a street window to order at and there was always a line when we passed it. Now we had ordered and our food was delicious! What a cool spot and great food! In the mean time, I had received a text from my Uncle Jeff, and he was going to meet us later too. We told him we would be at Three Daughters, and we made our way there. Justin met us there and we chatted for a bit, catching up. Then Uncle Jeff showed up, and we ended up outside catching up. Eventually Justin left and the place was closing down. Since we were biking, we said our good-bye’s and Lauren and I headed back to the marina.
Tomorrow we plan on leaving and heading to Tampa. The weather is looking a little windy, but we don’t have too far to go. We have reservations at the Tampa Convention Center and are looking forward to exploring more of Florida.