Blue Moon Sails Away: On to St. Pete

We made the decision to stay in the Tampa Bay area instead of constantly working our way farther south to just have to turn around and come back. With that done we decided to try and get a spot in the St. Pete area and go to the big in-water boat show. I've never been before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Luckily we were able to get a slip in the municipal marina for one night and then the St. Pete Yacht Club for 3 more. This gave us a chance to go over to the show for two days and see all we cared to see which was quite a bit. We attended several very informative seminars on everything from storm tactics, blue water sailing, celestial navigation and more. I loved taking a look at all the boats, old and new. There was an amazing array to choose from. Not having too much time or stamina, we stuck to sailboats and then only those in the 30 foot plus range. That meant we passed up thousands of powerboats of all shapes, sizes and purposes. I do wish I'd had time to go and peek at some of the floating palaces that only mega-yachts can be. A few required pre-screening to even go on board. I don't think I could have faked my way into the millionaire club with my t-shirt and shorts! I have to admit, none of the boats tempted me or made me jealous. We have an excellent platform for cruising anywhere we choose in relative comfort. Best of all she's paid for so no pressure there. We did learn a lot about products we'll investigate more to make her pretty and safer. We plan to add a solent rig so we can reduce sail in a storm and redo the non-skid on the decks. In 1982, the year Blue Moon was built, they didn't have that technique perfected for fiberglass. We also found some things that may work back at the yacht club now that David has responsibility for the docks and building for the coming year as Vice Commodore. We also we given $100 in gift cards as a promo by Lincoln for test driving a car and answering 2 surveys each. Overall, a very nice time so far.

There is a big park on an island at the North side of the entrance to Tampa Bay call Fort Desoto Park.
We hope to make it out there eventually. We tried one year by bicycle but after 20 miles gave up since
we had the same distance to ride back!

There is a dock at the park but I couldn't find anything on line to let us
know if we'd be allowed to pull up to it for the day.

I'm guessing the park museum/entrance cottage.

The Sunshine Skyway bridge. Always impressive. This will be our
first time passing under it since we bought Sanctuary in the Ruskin area in 2005.

A close-up of one of the wire supports. A real feat of engineering.

There are these bridge protectors, called dolphins, on 8 of the bridge pillars.
They will absorb any shock in case a ship hits one of them. Our cruising guide
cautions boaters about the channel area as some horrible accidents have happened
over the years.

These two ships were headed out as we were headed in.

To give you some perspective on the size of these ships, each of those white boxes is
an semi truck's trailer. They are designed to be lifted off and hooked up to a truck and driven off
to its final destination.

These two boats are towing a long pipeline.

Each end of the pipeline was supported by huge floats. The tug was on the forward end
with this little boat keeping backward tension in order to keep the thing from sagging in the
middle causing the pipe to fill with water and sink.