Last night, after dinner, we visited Lee and Cliff again for after dinner drinks and desert. Lee produced a piece of delicious Key Lime pie and the two of them were kind enough to take the trouble to mark our charts with places to drop in, restaurants, anchorages, free docks, etc. all down the west coast of Florida. There are a surprising, to me at least, number of restaurants and grocery stores with a dock that you can tie up to if you are going to favour their business. I wish I'd known about them on the way up. They even have their own pilot guide into Pelican Bay, a place that we would have liked to stay but everyone else that we spoke to told us that it was too shallow for us. Lee and Cliff have the secret pilot to get in and they were kind enough to share it with us. Nope. Sorry. We promised that we wouldn't post it on the blog, but if anyone really wants to know they can contact us by PM and I'll talk you through it.

Barb and Kayt toddled off to do a laundry early this AM and I stayed behind to give them some mother daughter time and an opportunity to work up some plots against me. I stayed behind to do a few simple boat chores: hook up the last of the dome lights, and plan the connect for the new VHF to the GPS and vice versa.

We made the trip to Pass-a-Grille Beach for the afternoon - a really nice beach adjacent to some small shops and boutiques that Kayt and Barb both enjoyed. I spent an hour on the beach lathered up in SPF 40 lotion in deference to the fact that I have already had one melanoma carved out of my hide, an experience that I do not care to repeat. We were fortunate to get there just before lunch before the crowds arrived and we hung out until 2 thirty at which point I was nicely cooked, thank you and Barb and Kayt had visited the boutiques and we were all ready to call it a day. I think that the next time we will try to get to the beach, when we go there, at mid morning and stay until after lunch. It's just too darn hot down here, even in December. No, I'm not really complaining, just stating a fact. You must be able to fry eggs on the beach sand in the summer though.

This has been a gorgeous day. I just have to get used to the heat and the bright sun. That IS what we came down here for but I never thought that I'd need an acclimatization period.

On the way back we stopped at a couple of places where Kayt could buy a beach hat and a shower sponge ball before deciding to dine out tonight. Since Kayt bought Barb and I lunch, I figure that it's our turn. My original idea of McDonalds was resoundingly vetoed, in spite of my poverty plea so it looks like we will be going into Gulfport for an Italian meal at Pia's Trattoria or at Domenic's Pizzeria (not the same as Domenic's back home). They have both been highly recommended by locals and we are testament to Pia's, at least, ourselves. There us also a seafood place across the road from the pizza joint that has been recommended as well. We will leave the choice to Kayt and I'll report tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will do my penance by taking Barb and Kayt back to the outlet mall and find something to occupy myself with while they are shopping. That's one thing about sitting on the beach while they toddle off to the stores - there is no shortages of things to occupy you as you sit there watching the parade of life go by. They are very positive sites such as some stunningingly beautiful women in very brief bikinis, and some humorous ones of not so beautiful, considerably overweight ones, also in brief bikinis. If you are female, there is the male equivalent parading up and down as well. I believe that I have mentioned in a previous post that the outlet mall really has nothing in it to interest your normal male animal unless of course you have an unnatural interest in women's clothing; natural being defined in the fact that you really aren't interesting in the clothes at all, rather at who is wearing them.