Departure

We leave the docks at 9:00 am Monday, June 1, 2015.  It’s a sunny day, blue skies with puffy white clouds, east winds about 5-8 and 80 degrees.  We leave Gulfport and sail over night to Boca Grande and stay at the South Seas Marina, about 100 nm south.  We have great east winds so the sailing was terrific as we headed south and it shifted to the west with sea breeze.  We sailed 5-6 nautical miles per hour, and hope to average 4 nmph over the trip.  We sailed offshore about 5 miles to avoid the shallows of Egmont Key and Anna Marie Island and then came in to 3 miles offshore in 30 feet of water.  We set the display to chart our course and set the auto helm to steer the course. We started out on port tack to southwest then tacked over to starboard tack about 2:00 pm until sunset and light air required motoring.  We saw a dolphin leap in the Pass-a-Grille channel coming out, frigates flying overhead, a pod of dolphins feeding and splashing, and pelicans on the water. We passed the beautiful white sandy beaches of St. Pete Beach and Pass-a-Grille, and watched as the landmark pink Don CeSar faded away.  We planned to anchor offshore at Midnight Pass, but when the sea breeze came in, it made it too rough to anchor offshore.  The backup plan was to anchor at Venice, but the thunderstorms over land made it too uncomfortable plus there may be mosquitoes in the calm night air. So we sailed over night and into Boca Grande to the South Seas Marina in Captiva at 9:30 am.  Twenty four and one half hours of sailing!  We rest and sort our stuff and get things organized.  It’s a rainy day with cool breezes so we are glad to be in the marina.