Sailing to the Florida Keys ~ New Horizons

Wednesday
November 30, 2011
Leaving Regatta Pointe Marina
Destination: DeSoto

We finally left Regatta Pointe Marina in Palmetto, Florida!! It was a bit sad leaving, at least for me. I guess it’s because I am a woman and I tend to want to “nest” wherever I go. Keith is the one that gets itchy feet if he is in one place too long! So glad he stayed put in Phoenix long enough for me to have met him!! LOL

We left at 1 pm and arrived at 3 pm at DeSoto to anchor and spend the night. We had a nice sail to DeSoto, very uneventful. After arriving at DeSoto we decided to take Maxi out to the beach to run, chase birds and potty. Keith went into the dinghy and attempted to start it. He tried and tried and it just would not start. He was finally able to start it but it would not idle very well so we had to get in and he started it in gear, which is not good for the engine. We made it to the beach and back with no problem. We had a good night but it was cold.

This morning when we woke up it was even colder!! Keith was a bit down; he dislikes the cold very much!! I do too but not as much as Keith does. Once again we were going to take Maxi to the beach and again, the dinghy’s outboard would not start!! Keith tried and tried and nothing. He began taking it apart and trying to see what was wrong but could not find the reason why it wouldn’t!! I was just sitting in the cockpit quietly wringing my hands and hoping he wouldn’t get so pissed off that he would just give the outboard a solid kick and sink it into the Manatee River!! Finally he took the gas hose off and looked at the gas coming out of the hose…it was CREAMY which meant it had water!! Aaarrrghhh…..so disappointing!!

Both of us were very disappointed because we would not be able to go on with our adventure without a reliable dinghy!! Back at the marina, Tony and Christina’s outboard had water in their gas and it messed up their carburetor!! They had to take it to get fixed...They took it about 3 weeks ago and still have not gotten it back.

This morning our outlook on our grand adventure looked very bleak. But, Keith being the super intelligent man that he is decided to dump out the gas. We are carrying a 6 gallon tank of gas that we were going to use for the dinghy and the generator. So he put in clean gas and tried pumping out the bad gas with the clean gas. Poor guy, he worked so hard!! All the time having to listen to Maxi up on the aft deck whining because he needed to go potty!! All his hard work paid off!! The dinghy started!! Hurrayyyyyy!! We were able to go ashore!! Phewwwwwww

We all felt so much better after coming back from shore. We felt rejuvenated! So we began to get ready to set sail. Ready for the next leg of our journey!!

Leaving DeSoto and headed to Longboat Pass.

Estimated time 5 hours.

El