Gulfport Municipal Marina

We enjoyed three beautiful warm sunny cruising days leading up to Christmas, but we are now experiencing the same storm system that is socking ya'll up there in Minnesota, although the Florida version is way gentler with some light rain and wind. Our first stop after leaving Caladesi State Park was Clearwater. Many loopers crossing the gulf opt to go another hour or two and land at the Clearwater Municipal Marina. Clearwater is upscale and well developed in contrast to the funky atmosphere of Tarpon Springs. The Marina has lots of busy charter fishing and tourboats along with restaurants, a hair salon, and an antique nautical shop. But it's also expensive at $2/foot/night. We pulled into Frenchie's dock instead, where you can tie up if you eat at Frenchie's Salt Water Cafe, which we did, but no one checks. Had an excellent Grouper Sandwich and walked through the Marina and down the wide clean beach which you can see in front of this huge hotel.

No overnight docking at Frenchie's however, so we pulled out and dropped the hook in Mandaley channel.

Leaving the next day, I tried this panoramic taken from the intercoastal looking at Bellaire Beach on the right, the Clearwater Pass Bridge in the Middle and Clearwater Beach on the right.

Clearwater Pass is where you would come in off the Gulf. As you can see, the coastline from here on south is at least 80% developed. Everyone wants waterfront and there's lots of it, with peninsulas, inlets, islands and canals in every direction. And lots and lots of boats, center console fishing boats from 15 feet to 30 feet are everywhere and many of the homes have elaborate docks and lifts with huge boats up on them. Here's a nice little neighborhood.

And here's something on a little bit larger scale, this one was still under construction.

The intercoastal flows through narrow parts and bays and sounds between the mainland and the barrier islands. Many of the bridges over the ICW have been replaced with tall spans so all the boats can get through, but the smaller communities still have lift bridges. They are mostly about 25' clearance, so the sailboats and bigger trawlers have to have them opened.

Our next anchorage is a unique one, McDonalds in Mediera Beach has a very nice floating dock with a Publix right next store. This is the view from where we anchored for 2 nights, enjoying McDonalds cuisine and taking advantage of the dock. Can you see the McDonalds flag flying at the end of the dock?

This was the first time we had gotten groceries by dinghy. There is a community of liveaboard sailors right around the corner from the McDonalds dock who dinghy over daily and lounge at the outdoor tables. There's even a small charter fishing boat that seems to be operating off the dock. One of the liveaboards told us where we could tie up the dinghy close to the town laundromat, so we did our laundry by dinghy as well. In the morning, this Great Egret was standing on our dinghy. Birds are everywhere and I purchased a laminated, accordion fold guide to Florida's Gulf Coast Birds so I can identify them. Most of them will let you get pretty close before they fly away.

We spent last night and tonight at the Gulfport Municipal Marina. We took the bikes into the downtown area yesterday (Christmas Eve) where there is a nice beach and lots of shops and restaurants. After dark, we biked the same route to look at the Christmas lights, followed by a dinner aboard of homemade pizza. Here's a Great Blue Heron that landed on our dock today. These guys are 4 feet tall !!

We went for a walk in a nearby nature preserve and this, I'm pretty sure, is a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron.

Steve is waxing the transom as he earlier scrubbed off the sooty black that results from cruising with a diesel. The sun has come out and it's warming back up. We're almost to the tip of the St. Petersburgh peninsula with plans to leave here tomorrow and finally get across the opening of Tampa Bay. I hope everyone reading had a very Merry Christmas. We miss our friends and family very much, but are grateful for and enjoying life's little pleasures: floating docks, warm weather, clean laundry and good food.