[photo: looking back at the John's Pass bridge from the Gulf beach]

Clyde was quite vociferous at 0545 this morning but I was ready to get up anyway. The coffee was good, as was the inevitable stroll to the bathrooms in the park. There is a lot to be said for the magic of the pre-dawn hours. Diane usually says stuff like, "go back to bed, you idiot!"

With the high tide at 0730 and us ready to go, there was not need to dawdle, so off we went. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning and for a while we had enough E wind to motor-sail to the SSE in the ICW. Being a weekend, there was a lot more boat traffic than on weekdays, mostly fishermen racing to the inlet and out to the Gulf.

In about 2.75 hours, we reached our intended anchorage, as suggested on ActiveCaptain by one boater. We are just a bit over a mile from John's Pass by water inside the end of a very wide dead-end canal. The depth at low tide looks like it will be about 5 feet, so we will be 6 inches off the bottom, but there is zero wave action in here and no wakes, so we won't be bouncing up and down. The bad part is there appears to be no good access ashore, even though the beach is just a few hundred yards from where we are. I suppose we could have taken a chance with a dock at a home that appears unoccupied, but we decided not to. I will be sure to update ActiveCaptain with our opinions of this location.

After an early light lunch aboard, we got our beach stuff in the dinghy and traveled at a relatively slow speed, as required, to the pass itself. On both the N and S sides were many restaurants, bars, small boat marinas, personal watercraft rentals, and even a large casino ship. The interaction of the wind (light as it was), current, and boat wakes made it interesting to navigate under the draw bridge and out into the Gulf, but we avoided the problems and all went well.

Immediately after exiting the pass, we turned S and putted into the beach just away from the swimming area. It was really important to anchor the dinghy in the water rather than beach it because the wave action would have swamped the transom quickly. Diane enjoyed the beach with her folding chair, and I joined her on my towel because it was surprisingly cloudy right then. In a half hour, there were only small puffy white clouds left and plenty of warm sunshine.

The heat of the sun drove me into the water to loll in the swells and stay cool. Later I walked a bit to get in the shade of some huge pines and that coupled with the building NE breeze felt great. I wasn't concerned about Diva Di - the anchor was firmly set and we were well protected - but by 1430 we decided to head back. We don't actually have a thermometer in the boat unless the A/C control is on (not possible at anchor) or I use my electronic wind speed/air temp instrument, so I can only say that the breeze coming through is making it fairly comfortable as I type this at 1500.

While Diane was voraciously reading her latest book, I spent more time than expected trying to figure out where to go tomorrow. We really need to have the holding tank pumped out and while we are fine with anchoring out, I was hoping to be somewhere we could celebrate Diane's birthday on the 15th. Finally, we decided to skip about 5 hours S and go to the northern portion of Anna Maria Island.

Exhausted from my deliberations, I made a beverage and broke out the fishing pole. I doubted there was much to be had, but it was something to do. Of course, I had some tunes on the stereo at a considerate volume and life was good.

Diane napped and then I prepared dinner - the fresh caught wahoo from yesterday. It was very delicious served with the leftover rice and crabmeat from 2 nights ago plus a tomato salad. The darkness came swiftly and all of us enjoyed an hour topside in the fading light and then blackness of the night.

We explored many options for the next day and decided to head to the northern tip of Anna Maria Island for 2 nights. We leave when the tidal height allows us to go, near 0830.