Venice Yacht Club

We arrived before dusk and made the most of our short stay.  I was able to catch up on laundry and we had a fabulous meal in the club dining room.  We needed to leave early the next morning to leave on high tide.  If you look at a map of this part of Florida you see a lot of water.  However, most of the water is less than 4 feet deep so we have to plan carefully.  We were also taking another leap forward in testing our cruising limitations.  We planned to travel in the Gulf up past Tampa Bay back to Gulfport.  With the forecast winds we knew we could make it in daylight as long as David tolerated the open water.  We had several inlets where we could opt out if need be so it seemed a good spot to give it a go.

The intracoastal near Venice is a dredged canal meandering along a
creek bed. There are parks and houses along the way to look at so it's a
pleasant trip.

The only negative about the stretch of water is all the draw bridges.
It takes time to call and then wait for an opening.  There were 5 along this stretch.

This is a mural on a school near the downtown area telling the
history of the area.  

This beautiful bird came for a short visit and didn't seem to care that
I was taking his picture.

We were at the end of one of the club's docks. Not many other
sailboats but a few.

The club's main building.

Sunrise through the haze.