The First Day

We departed the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina at 0920 (or 9:20 a.m.), entering Tampa Bay and heading west towards the immense Skyway Bridge. The wind was light so we motored along the shipping channel. Once past the bridge (see photo) we turned south towards Sarasota, a major city and our destination that day. I was glad Bennie Ficarrotta was with us because he knew these waters and where not to venture because of the shoals. He set a way point to enter the narrow channel leading to Sarasota Bay. This is part of the Intracoastal Waterway that winds between the Florida mainland and the the barrier islands that front on the Gulf of Mexico.

Way points are established on a navigational device called a chart plotter, which on Lily Rose is located above and in front of the steering wheel in the cockpit. Its display, which looks like a computer screen, shows the area the boat is navigating and the location of the boat. The display can be manipulated to enlarge the area or decrease the area shown, to provide more detail. Navigational markers, usually buoys, are shown to help the helmsman steer a safe course. But much more information is provided,  including weather, depending on what services one sets up. The buoys are colored red or green to mark the channel's safe width. Sail boats like Lily Rose also are equipped with depth finders that tell you how much water is below your keel in feet, and the charts one loads into the chart plotter also provide water depths. When you set a way point on your chart plotter, the plotter also displays a course line from your boat to the way point, which gives the helmsman the direction to steer. But one must be careful to note the courses depth of water, because way point courses merely mark the straitest way to go. This is no problem when you are in deep water at sea. But in shallow bays and inlets, way points are less useful. Thus in this case, Bennie set a way point when we were in the deeper water of Tampa Bay to get to where the narrow channel to Sarasota begins. Then we steered entirely by noting the red and green buoys to keep in the middle of the channel.

At 1630 (or 4:30 p.m.) we anchored just off Sarasota and Marina Jacks, a fancy marina Francie and I had once considered as a temporary home for Lily Rose. But we didn't feel the marina fitted our style and chose the St. Petersburg marina instead. Our dock there was filled mostly with sail boats (instead of motor yachts) and many had live-aboards. Francie fixed a delicious dinner and so ended our first day.