Boating Enemy

At 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, Charlie and I.....along with Britt, Joshua and Chad....put our little 19’ boat, Go Gator, in at the ramp on Davis Island.
True it was a little ‘choppy’ and the winds were predicted to come up after lunch but knowing that the ’Gators’ were playing Georgia at 3:00 p.m., Charlie felt ’safe’ to take our mornings planned excursion.
Our destination was to be...http://www.bahiabeachresort.com
or in plain English.....Bahia Beach Resort and Marina at Ruskin.
It is approximately 20 miles south on the Tampa Bay waters.
No problem....an easy run going about 25 mph..(GPS speed)
Except.....upon entering totally open waters....the wind picked up...slightly.
Charlie had done his ’navigation homework’ and we knew when to cut east out of the main ’Cruise Boat’ channel.....
Thinking we had made a slight error as we were nearing our ’land sights’ we found that the cut we took right..... took us to the Bahia Del Sol Marina but we were still in sight of our chosen destination...
Cruising each marina was fun just seeing all the ’boat window shopping’!
As we entered our marina a fisherman gestured for us to look to the port side of the boat.....to Joshua’s delight several Dolphins were happily diving up and down right beside us. While docking, Joshua kept saying, “More Dolphin, more Dolphin”.....
Bahia is the Marina that we are contemplating moving the Milagro to in the near future. It is a full resort marina, pools, restaurants, hotel, beach etc.
The Dock Master, Mr. Gibson, told us that since we had been there the facilities had sold to a new owner on Oct. 15 and that changes were in the offing.
Charlie put our name on the list for ‘permanent dockage’ that being by the monthly rates rather than ‘transient’ per night rates.
Having an early lunch, 11:00 a.m., at the Outrigger Restaurant, we loaded up and headed back. We began fighting the wind as soon as we came out of the safe harbor of the marina. Choppy and rough caused us to drop our speed considerably. Our enemy - the wind had arrived!
Brittney insisted on sitting on the bow of the boat. She had to hold on to the front lines at all times and looked like a cowgirl riding a bucking bronco. See pictures Link #1 Family Fun album.
Loading the boat out once we arrived back at the ramp is another story.
High winds....low tide....boat ramp horror show!
Others were having the same problem...
Once we were loaded out and had taken the boat back to our Coast Guard storage lot, it was 3:30 p.m. before we arrived home to watch the Gators WIN!!!
Yes!
Brittney had the nerve to call and say....”That was so much fun! When can we do it again?”
Despite our enemy.....a good time was had by all!!!

See Link #1 Family Fun album