After taking our time departing the last anchorage we headed to Clearwater Beach. The forecast today was high winds and storms overnight. On our way to the anchorage, the Coast Guard came on the radio and was giving warnings about high winds, tornadoes and fatal lightening, which did not make us feel very good about anchoring out. We called a marina on the way and was told there is no room for us. Apparently this is busy season for marinas. I figured we could get to the anchorage and scope it out again and see how we feel about it, and if we felt we needed a marina we would call every other marina around. I’ve also noticed the forecast seems to change hourly here in Florida.
We found our way to the anchorage we had scoped out and there were a lot of boats anchored here, which only a couple may have had someone on board. We had noticed this as mentioned, Florida seems to have boats anchored everywhere. Many of the boats looked to have nobody aboard, but a couple did. There was a channel coming into a marina, and we pulled just out of the channel and dropped our hook among the other boats. I had eyed up our spot and dropped enough line for the anchor to dig in and swing but not hit our neighbors. We continued to look at the forecast and the storms were still coming, but now it was coming later in the night/early morning hours.
Now that we were anchored securely, the rain started. At least we timed that perfectly. We hung out and waited for the rain to pass before taking Frank to shore before the ‘big’ storm actually hit. As we were walking around we stopped for a refreshment at a coffee shop. We hung out on the covered patio with Frank and waited for the rain to subside. Since we had already walked around in the light rain, we were a little wet. We had seen a place called Frenchy’s which looked good and reasonably priced. Their story is this: ” in 1981, Frenchy’s Original Café, the quaint restaurant on a tiny side street, opened its doors to the beach community. The Café became an instant success, with lines of people stretching out the door on a daily basis. To ensure a constant source of fresh fish to the Café, Frenchy purchased a fleet of fishing boats and eventually opened Frenchy’s Seafood Company. With these resources in place, Frenchy’s became “famous” for its fresh Super Grouper sandwich”… Lauren went in to see if we could bring Frank and they said yes, they have an outdoor covered patio we could sit at. The host was funny, because he said ” Have the dog shake outside so he doesn’t get our patron wet as we walk through”. I cannot tell Frank when to shake off, but I did say “lets move along and he won’t stop to shake!” Once out back we found a table and there was another dog and owner out there too, but the dogs were separated by a few tables and all was well. We can tell you the grouper sandwiches are delicious. We had lunch and tried to wait out the rain for a bit. Eventually it slowed down and we took off for the dinghy to get back to Klondike before the heavy rain started again. The ride back was a little wet, but we made it.
Since we had been here earlier in the week, we didn’t feel the need to explore. Now that we were back to the boat, we just hung out and watched the sunset and the dark clouds roll in. Frank had plenty of time on land, so we ran the generator for a bit and relaxed. The winds started picking up and we just hunkered down. Eventually we called it a night and retired, although we kept a close eye on where we were swinging. Once we were again sure we were secure and not too close to the other anchored boats, we slept through the storm which did not produce the lightening and thunder we were expecting, and I was not mad about that. We did swing every which way including into the channel a bit, but no other boats were out in this weather so I wasn’t too worried about it…