Red sky at night gave us misty rain in the morning in Sarasota. Good that we were leaving as the forecast looked pretty grim for the next day when we were originally supposed to depart. We headed out of Marina Jack into the southern Sarasota Bay, following the channel went under the Siesta Key Bridge and the Stickney Point Bridge. Then followed the channel along Siesta Key to Little Sarasota Bay, on past Osprey to the Blackburn Bridge - which is a swing bridge with only 9-foot clearance that requires the bridge tender to go out into the middle of it to open it for us. Following the Blackburn Bay we came down to pretty little Venice - what we could see of it, and more rain. We had previously booked a slip at the Crow's Nest Marina, right by the Venice Inlet - but the forecast for 8 foot waves this night deterred us from staying there of all places. We twisted thought the Roberts Bay in Venice entering a narrow canal that took us all the way down to Englewood. At Lemon Bay, we turned into the Aquamarina - Palm Harbor on Cape Haze.

By the time we got there, the rain had cleared up a bit and when checking in at the marina, we engaged the service folks to try to arrange to get some repairs done before the holidays kicked into high gear. We identified with some help the source of the water leak behind the TV (bad caulk around drain under floor of cabinet below bridge grill); discussed re-installing the radar post (the one that we had to detach during the Apalachicola - Clearwater crossing); and needed to get someone to deal with the hydraulic fluid and fuel leaks that we had noticed in the last few days. We arrived early enough to pick up a rental car at Enterprise before it closed. We had dinner with Roy's mom, who lives only 3 miles away at Farlow’s on the Water; and picked up all the packages and mail we'd had shipped to her house.

The next couple of days had miserable weather - very fortunate we were in port and not traveling as the seas had gone up to nearly 10-15 feet just beyond the thin strip of Don Pedro Island in the Gulf with nearly gale force winds and intense periodic squalls of rain, lightening and thunder. It wasn't an officially named storm or anything but it sure was a pretty brutal one that spawned waterspouts and tornados and allegedly had winds in some places up the coast that approached 80 mph. We drove out to the Englewood and Blind Pass Beaches on Manasota Key with Roy's brother-in-law and nephew to see the impressive surf and tremendous waves.

Roy was home for the holiday with his mom and sister and her family. So there was lots of food (turkey, seafood pasta, roast beef, ham, cookies, etc.) and visiting with family. Evan went up to Jacksonville to see his parents, sister and her family over Christmas.

The day after Christmas the repairmen/servicemen began to show up and over the next few days: the hydraulic leak was fixed; the fuel leak relegated to a minor irritation, not something to be fixed at present; the leak on the bridge fixed (the leak behind the television/electric panel!); the radar post remounted with new radar cable installed; and a new KVH dome installed (to replace the one crushed when the radar post fell on it in the Gulf). The service guys recommended we get the aftercoolers fixed soon - which we'll probably do in Fort Lauderdale where we'll next have the time and expertise to do it.

On our very last day, we had the boat hauled and the whole rub rail on the swim platform / stern area removed, recaulked and reinstalled to prevent water (and now salt water) from leaking into the engine room (which it had been doing since the Erie Canal). We noticed while the boat was out of the water that one of the two zincs were missing on the starboard trim tab and the bolts on the remaining zincs were loose - and that one of the skegs in front of the starboard pod drive was missing (probably lost to a Mississippi log). Glad we had Salty pulled out! Otherwise, it could have been problematic if we hadn't noticed these things for another thousand miles. We made a trip to West Marine and the Publix to get supplies for the next stretch of our journey

Great to catch up with family and catch up with Salty maintenance on this stop. Next stop - Boca Grande! 6 miles away!