Our trip up from Sarasota was a lovely chilled motor, with a cormorant catching a ride on our canoe boom.

Entering into the Intercostal Waterway, we came through the St Johns Pass Bascule Bridge

We are anchored in the ICW at Treasure Island.

Lots of restaurants and pubs. We had a great first night ashore meal at Shrimpy’s, with an excellent selection of 30 local craft draft beers, and superb shrimp dishes.

The Key is two blocks wide, so just a short walk across to a huge expanse of beach (not like we need to see the sea). LOL

A superb Publix (Pick n Pay) with a jetty facility onto the ICW about 300m away from our anchorage, so shopping is a breeze by dingy. Jut tie up to their jetty, shop, trolley to the jetty, and zoom back to Meshugga with our dingy full of shopping. I even managed to buy ice cream and get it back to our freezer before starting to melt!

Council offices on the waterside have a visitor jetty, with a parking meter! LOL, $2 per hour. Provides easy access to the village, alternatively we use the Publix jetty and walk the 200m to all the shops, bars and restaurants.

A sightseeing trip to the St Pete Salvador Dali Museum was wonderful. Stunning artwork. Surreal. Their audio tours a definite must to understand Dali and the symbolism of his artwork.

Outside the iconic Salvador Dali Museum

One of the most interesting paintings of Salvador Dali

Drinks outside in the Dali Gardens in the sun after hours inside, in very cold air-conditioning.

We decided to ride the bus back to Treasure Island.

Very laid back area, in a lovely anchorage. Our days are spent doing general chores and preventative maintenance each morning, and then a bit of sightseeing, shopping etc the rest of the day.

We are still keeping a sharp lookout on NOAA for any hurricanes that might still form as there is still 2 - 3 weeks of hurricane season left. I’ll be most glad when it’s over…..

We’ll head back south to Key West this week, and are beginning to make plans for post hurricane season cruising in the Caribbean. No definite plans yet, but might go across to Bahamas……we hear they have lovely islands and good snorkeling, but very limited shopping, so I need to start a stock take on Meshugga to see what we need to stock up with before heading away from the States.

We also need to slip Meshugga to anti-foul, and that’s proving to be a bit of a head-ache to find a Travel Lift wide enough for our 10m beam. More internet research…. and calling Boatyards to check on their beams so we can make a booking somewhere either during November or early next year.

Terrible to hear of the water situation and the Fires in Cape Town, and flooding in Durban. Hope you are all okay. The weather really is upside down world wide.

Take care.