Day 72 - venice

Miles cruised 65, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $125, , daily high temperature 84*FThe Arnold's had a busy day. They had lunch with Dale's brother David and his wife Pat. Then they had dinner with with their niece Brittany. She had attended one of Dale and Andy's Thrivant trips to El Salvador to build housing for the locals.David, Pat and DaleBrittany and two of her brothers.John and Priscilla toured the town of Indian Rocks Beach including walking to the beach on the gulf side. The beach appeared to be endless in both directions and the gulf waters were flat as glass. Then we went to the swimming pool in the afternoon.John and Dale visited Bob and Barbara on the Nova Scotia 47 trawler for a tour and sundowners on their lido deck.John and Priscilla had dinner at the Holiday Inn tiki bar. The singer at the tiki bar had a remote control tip jar. It was a remote controlled mini monster truck chassis with a tip jar taped to it. He controlled it with one foot as he played. He drove  the tip jar up to each table and let it sit there until someone put money in the jar.  Brilliant.Our next door neighbor Mike on the trawler Gulf Winds, owns a plant and tree rental business. Palm trees are the most popular rental item.  He works two days a week and has some beach rental properties also.  The rest of the time he anchors out near some ICW island.The marina sponsors a Christmas boat parade each year. The contestants are busy decorating their boats. Last years winner had an LED light display on the side of his boat of Dolphins jumping in and out of the water.Today we will head south. We will travel the 8 miles on the ICW to John's Pass and go out into the Gulf for 55 miles  and end up in Venice, Florida. There are many crab pots along the way. Many more than we saw coming from Carabelle.This is our first attempt to get a photo of a dolphin next to our boat.Keeping track of the channel markers gets challenging when entering the ICW from the gulf. Returning to the ICW the red markers are red, right, returning. But once you are the in ICW the the markers reverse and the red is on the left. That's why we have the Popsicle stick with two colors on it.Our friend and co-founder of Weber Yachts, Rich Reick from Chicago, is visiting relatives in Venice and will meet us for docktails and dinner.We are safely tied up at the Fisherman's Wharf Marina in Venice, Florida.Bonus photo Carl (Chef) Wooden - quote of the day.The genesis of this story was an incident that occurred back in July of this year in which Polina Star III, an Oyster 825 sailboat, was lost off the coast of Spain. "The keel disconnected completely and the boat capsized, in that moment I was standing up in front of the chart table (deck-house) sending the may-day, the water was already cooling down my balls. A fishing boat "fished"us after a couple of hours." - The skipper, Alessio Cannoni,