DUNEDIN, TARPON SPRINGS & CLEARWATER BEACH

He Said:  Hello from sunny again Florida.  At the end of our last blog I think the weather was windy and rainy in St. Pete.  Pat’s girlfriend Karen, from Chicago, had just arrived and thank heaven the weather took a great turn for the better.  Her last few days were perfect; the girls had a chance to do some girlie stuff and catch up on old times.  Karen departed on Monday the 5^th of May,  We think that she was our final company, maybe back to normal?? It has been really fun having all of the company we have had since arriving in Florida about a half a year ago, seems crazy.

We are only about a week away from our 1 year anniversary of boat life.  At times it seems like picking up the boat in CT and heading to Boston was years ago; other times it feels like just yesterday.  Time certainly can be a little strange, don’t you think?

We spent the following week doing our normal stuff - lots of boating stuff, laundry, eating in, and just being as normal as you can when living this life style.  On Wednesday the 7^th we met with our boat neighbors John and Roberta. They came over for Happy Hour and gave us some great info on the Bahamas (they have traveled there a bunch).  Following happy hour we headed into town to grab a burger at one of our favorite little pubs in downtown St. Pete.

On Friday the Camps (an ex-work buddy) picked us up for an evening on the beach, including a fun couple of beach bars, pizza to take to the beach, a pretty sunset, and then off to there home in Treasure Island for a finale.  They ran us back to the marina at midnite or so.  It was a terrific evening.

Jack, Mark and Janet having pizza on St Pete Beach

Sunset on St. Pete Beach

We met up with our boating friends Mike and Lori for a few cold ones on Sunday nite.  They are heading back to IL for the summer months - it was kind of a goodbye-for-now cocktail hour.  I forgot to mention we met up with Mike and Lori on Sat. the 10^th for a downtown concert.  The park was next to the water and a lot of boat people just anchored out, took a dip, and tuned into the concert at 0$$.  For us to move the boat and return in the dark it’s not really worth the $50.00 savings for the concert.  Oh yea, now for the entertainment.  None other than 63 year old, “That’s The Way I Like It,” KC (native Florida boy) and the Sunshine Band.  He put on a great show - more big hits than you probably remember.  Now for the real deal - the one and only Blues Brothers.  Both Jim Belushi and Akroyd rocked.  They appeared to have a blast doing their thing, inviting ladies onto the stage and dancing their old asses off.  What a blast!  Following the tunes they had a very impressive fireworks show.  It also rocked – what a fun, fun nite.

KC in the red shirt on stage at Taste of Pinellas

Jim Belushi and Dan Ackroyd playing the harmonica

The firework display was spectacular.  Bigger than most 4th of July celebrations

On Monday May 12^th we departed St. Pete.  We were there for a month and it is one of the nicest cities we have been to.  We will probably work our way back to St. Pete on our 2^nd visit.  We traveled about 4 hours or so to Dunedin.  We spent 2 nites there and really enjoyed it. It’s a nice little peaceful and friendly city with a small town flavor.

We took the dingy to happy hour at Capt'n Jack's in Dunedin

Dunedin sunset rom MTB

 

On Wed. the 14^th we left the marina and headed to Tarpon Springs.  Our plan was to spend a couple nites here, but we had big winds on Friday so we took a 3^rd day at Tarpon Springs. The location of our marina could not have been any better. Tarpon Springs is also a quaint little town full of sponges and Greek food.  On the main drag it was about 90% Greek restaurants, bakeries, and large boats bringing in every style and size of sponges from the bottom of the gulf that you could imagine.  Every little store in town sells sponges.  My preference was the Greek desserts, they rocked.  We did find time to go to Rusty Bellies for live music one nite and their great shrimp another nite.  On Friday we of course went to one of the local Greek diners, it was terrific.  We really enjoyed Tarpon Springs, but it is time for us to head back south.

Unloading sponges in Tarpon Springs

We left on Sat. the 17^th and headed down to Clearwater Beach.  Our trip was about 3 hours and we arrived early on Sat. afternoon.  We had to go stern first into our tight slip in about a 12 MPH wind.  It was not so much fun, but we got in ok - thank god for the dock dudes, they are a big help especially when conditions are a little challenging.  We walked over to the beach when we got in to get a feel for the city.  The beach is about as beautiful as I have ever seen - wide, pretty white sand, and beautiful water.  Guess where we watched the sun set that nite?  Pier 60 is a party at sunset time - lots and lots of bodies, people still swimming at 8:00 in the evening.  It was simply a lot of action.  We have done the Naples Pier, Mallory Square in Key West, and Pier 60 here in Clearwater and from a happening stand point I believe this one wins.

Sunset from Pier 60 in Clearwater Beach

That is about it for now.  Our plans have not changed since our last blog.  If you live in Columbus or Phoenix we are looking forward to seeing you folks in the next few months.  Take Care.  I hope all is well in your lives, Jack

 

She Said:  I have absolutely loved St. Pete.  The only bad things were the “love bugs” (more about them later) and the weather when we’ve had guests.  The day Karen arrived it was cold and rainy with flooding all over the area.  The big “First Friday” event – a street festival held the first Friday of every month – was cancelled because of the lousy weather.  The upside to the rainy weather is that we didn’t feel bad spending several hours inside at the Dali Museum.  The museum was phenomenal – I’d highly recommend it.  I can’t say that I’m a Dali fan, but I am intrigued and fascinated by his work.  I’m so glad we took a docent led tour; she pointed out so many things that we never would have seen on our own.

 

The weather did clear up for Karen’s last two days in town.  We made it to the beach one day (including a few beach bars) and took the dinghy to lunch the other day.  And of course, we tried out several new restaurants while Karen was in town.  In spite of the weather, we had a great visit – just wish it would have lasted longer.

 

I'm so bad at taking pictures, I finally remembered to take a photo as Karen was leaving

As our departure date drew closer, we decided to stay an extra couple days in St. Pete.  There’s so much going on we hated to leave.  As usual, our last week in town was busy.  There were so many places yet to see, places to re-visit and so many people to see one last time.  We won’t miss the ‘love bugs.”  These bugs were genetically engineered at the University of South Florida.  The intent was to create a bug that would eat mosquitoes.  Unfortunately, the project failed – they don’t eat mosquitoes!  All they do is mate, reproduce (500 eggs per female) then die.  The bugs are good size, slow and everywhere- both dead and alive.  They are annoying, but not nearly as bad as the no-see-ums. 

We got together with our Phoenix friends, Mark & Janet, again.  Mark met us at the beach one day and chauffeured us around to his favorite beach bars (Jack was in heaven).  On one of our last nights in town, Mark and Janet picked us up and took us to a couple new beach bars (you can see why Mark & Jack are friends).  Then we picked up pizzas and took them to the beach where we ate while watching the sunset.  The seagulls were so aggressive they almost stole Jack’s pizza out of his hands.  We eventually ended up at Mark & Janet’s for dessert.  What an absolutely great day!  

 

Janet, Mark, Jack & Pat enjoying the sunset on St. Pete Beach

The birds stealing Jack's pizza on St. Pete Beach

Our plans for next year include a trip to the Bahamas.  So one night we got together on MTB for cocktails with boat neighbors, John & Roberta, who have made the Bahamas trip several times.  They were a wealth of information!  We ended the evening at The Avenue for burgers.  It was a really fun evening with fun people.  We hope to run into them again next year.

We got together several times with our Marathon boat neighbors, Mike & Lori, from Bloomington, IL  They are such nice people and we spent many fun hours talking, laughing and partying with them.  They had us over for dinner on Cinco de Mayo which was really enjoyable - I think we were there until 1:00am.  On a hot Saturday night we went to the Taste of Pinellas with them to see KC & the Sunshine Band and the Blues Brothers.  The Blues Brothers act was really good.  We really enjoyed their company and I know we will see them next winter.

 

A hot day and fun night at the Taste of Pinellas - one of many festivals while we were in St Pete

Our last night in St Pete with Lori and Mike

We finally said good-bye to St. Pete.  It was a 35mile trip (about 5 hours dock-to-dock) to Dunedin.  We planned to spend one night in Dunedin, but it was so cute we stayed two nights.  The town was settled by Scots and their sister town is in Scotland.  There weren't, however, any Scottish restaurants, so we had a fantastic Mexican meal at Tina's. There are no chain stores or restaurants in town.  Everything is small and privately owned.  We really enjoyed our time in Dunedin even though we had torrential rains.






 

One of the many islands we passed on the IntraCoastal - great places to drop the anchor for the day or overnight
 

 

Then it was another 20 miles north to the Greek town of Tarpon Springs – also known as the Sponge Capital of the U.S.  Again, no chains only privately owned businesses.  You hear Greek accents all over the place and a large percentage of the stores and restaurants are owned by Greeks.  In addition to the sponge boats, there are lots of fishing and shrimp boats.  We had great fresh seafood at Rusty Bellies – they have their own fishing and shrimp boats.  (Of course, se stocked up on fresh shrimp!)  The Greek food was absolutely fabulous!  I thought I didn’t like Baklava – I was wrong, it was sooo good.  One night we attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for a new nightclub – it was quite an affair.  How about that for something different?  When you leave the sponge docks, the little town is quaint with lots of parks.  We planned on staying two nights, but a cold front came through bringing high winds so we stayed a third night.  It worked out great because there were too many restaurants to try out in two nights. 

Tarpon Springs flooding during an exceptionally high tide. 

 

The weather improved some, and we were able to leave Tarpon Springs.  We headed south to Clearwater Beach.  The winds were still brisk, but the temperature was great and the humidity even better.  We pulled into the marina in Clearwater Beach around lunchtime and it was bustling – there were people, cars and boats everywhere.  The beach here is something else – big, beautiful sand and packed.  There’s a sunset celebration on the beach at Pier 60 – it’s similar to the one in Key West with street acts, vendors and general craziness.  They even had a big movie screen set up.  We ended up at Cooley’s, a restaurant celebrating their 21^st Anniversary and Frenchies.  It’s supposed to be nice tomorrow so hopefully we get to spend some time on the beach.    

Clearwater Beach - a huge beach.  The sand was fine and white. 

Our one year is quickly coming to an end.  It’s hard to believe.  We’ve seen and done so much it’s amazing.  We’ve been very fortunate to have had this incredible experience.