After spending four days at Tarpon Springs, we felt we needed to move on. The weather had kept us there for an extra day, so we were feeling a bit restless. The weather was still windy, but no rain was forecast for today. We settled up our tab for the stay and prepared to depart in the mid afternoon. .
We did not have far to go today; we were only heading to an anchorage about fifteen miles away. On the way out I had researched fuel options and saw there was a fuel dock around the corner from us that had real good prices. I cannot pass up $2.73 a gallon, especially when we take on over two hundred gallons. It would have been ten cents cheaper by if we paid cash, but I did not have that much cash on hand. This is some of the cheapest fuel we’ve seen on the trip so far. We have been asked how much fuel we’ve used so far and we haven’t kept track due to the fact that we fill up whenever we find cheap fuel. I’m sure we will be able to figure out all of the costs at the end by looking at credit card bills, but it is not something we track as of now. We approached the fuel dock and the I thought we had it perfect, but the guy on the dock refused to take the line from Lauren, saying we should turn and approach from the other direction. I was not too happy with this as we had a perfect landing as far as I was concerned, but what could I do but continue on and turn around for another approach. We came to the dock and he finally grabbed the line that she could literally hand over to him and not have to throw it ,and we got secured to the fuel dock. Once fueled up, we departed again heading out the river and toward the Gulf to find our anchorage.
The winds today were forecast to be in the double digits, and it was quite windy when we left. The anchorage we had looked at on the computer looked to be somewhat sheltered, but when we got there it was clear it was not due to the direction which the wind was blowing. We approached the small island and skirted our way around the shallow areas around it. We tried to tuck in somewhat close, but it was shallow all around. We dropped anchor about a hundred yard off the island. The wind was coming form the east, so it blew across the open water toward us and built up some waves. Since we were as close as we felt comfortable getting, we dropped the anchor and made sure it was set well. Then we had nothing to do but hang out and wait for the wind to hopefully settle down. The waves were building, but we were somewhat comfortable with our bow into them, and not too much rocking, especially being weighed down with full tanks. Unfortunately for Frank there was no dinghy ride into land with these conditions. Thankfully we had departed later in the day, so he had plenty of land time before we left. Just as the sun was setting a sailboat pulled up and anchored not too far from us. The wind was supposed to die down as it got later in the evening, but it was still blowing strong. We eventually fired up the generator and made dinner after a beautiful sunset. The wind continued to blow and the forecast kept changing to show high winds throughout the night until 10pm at least. After dinner, we settled in and just had to go with the flow. The movement of the boat wasn’t too bad, so we eventually called it a night and retired for the evening, trusting the anchor would hold us.
Morning came and we were still in the same place we had anchored, although we had shifted because the wind direction had changed. I looked out the window and the sailboat was still there and they had quite large flames coming from their grill- they must have been cooking a heck of a breakfast! I watched them for a bit to make sure all was well, and it looked like it was just breakfast being prepared. We did our morning routine, including taking Frank to the island since the wind had settled down. The island had a sign that I did not notice in the evening that said “NO ANIMALS”, but I pretended not to see it since I was already ashore. Frank did his business shortly after landing and I was eaten alive by the mosquitoes in the same amount of time.
By 9am we were ready to depart and head to our next destination: Clearwater Beach. We had scoped out the anchorage when we came here on the trolley from Tarpon Springs, so we knew what we were expecting. What we did not know at the time was the weather. Tonight has more high winds and storms approaching, so we are on the fence of anchoring or finding a marina…