They finished the screens for the boat by noon today. I paid the fee and Shorty was now off to Three Rivers Marine where they changed the break-in oils in the engine at 10 hours not quite twelve but very close. After they finished that this afternoon it was off to the Race Trac station for a fillup of fuel or more like topping off the two 55 gallon tanks. They needed thirty some gallons apiece. Then we launched Shorty and now we are sitting next to Mike's dock again. They say this coming weekend is Gasparilla Week in Tampa which is a pirate celebration and the place will be loaded with boats so the marina's are probably full and not a good time to start the trip. Also need to talk to my friend in Tampa and see if he want's to do the first leg of the trip with me. In the meantime I continue to look at the charts and become as familiar as possible with everything on the boat. The weather has turned cooler and they keep saying the wind is higher offshore than here where I am protected. After launch today I took a ride out to see for myself but the smoke on the power plant at marker one as you look right was going straight up so the forecast was wrong for that close to shore. That far out you can look to your right and left and still see land so I will be going out until I can clear the reef when headed south.
I saw Mike taking pictures of Shorty when we launched the boat so maybe he will be posting some on the Three Rivers Marine website soon. I took a few today and haven't checked them out yet but there was a different kind of bird today and all of the markers going out in the channel. I saw brown pelicans, a pelican with a yellowish head and I don't know his true name, and the everpresent gulls. One dolphin came alongside for a minute. Coming into Mikes dock and past Pete's Pier there was a sailboat the likes of which I have not seen before. The construction of it looked like sheets of plywood bent to a boat that looked like a Chinese junk. It had a small cabin top forward and aft was a glassed pilot house which was square to keep the captain out of the weather while sailing or motoring. Lucky for me the local people weren't out looking for speeders, I was watching another boat and went into the idle zone for manatees for about a hundred yards before I rapidly slowed to idle speed and hoped I wouldn't get stopped.
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