 |
| An unusual view of Day Dreams |
We left Tampa Bay and entered the GIWC once more, traveling north along Pasadena, Pass-a-Grille, Redington Shores and Treasure Island. We pulled into Clearwater City Marina, situated right under Clearwater Memorial Causeway Bridge. The docks are floating concrete in good shape and there is well maintained parkland along the shore. The Marina office & small facilities are quite a distance from the docks. There are commercial boats, using the docks near the transient slips: The Aquarium ferry, the public ferry to & from the beach and the Freedom Boat Club. There is pretty good security with gates and the dock hands are very helpful.
 |
| There were public tennis courts |
 |
| Scientology Buildings |
 |
| The Flag, Super Power Bldg |
The downtown area of Clearwater, which lies within a block of the Marina has an odd feel. Scientologist own a lot of the Real Estate in the nearby City and the shoreline. On Cleveland St, which is Clearwater's main street, that dead ends into the Marina, there is a big marble building which is the Church of Scientology. Nearby are their hotels, condo's and their Super Power building called The Flag. There are Flag buses cruising the streets, along with many adults dressed identically in white dress shirts, navy & light blue vests and navy pants, usually walking in pairs carrying clip boards.
None of these folks even acknowledge others so it's not that they are soliciting, as a matter of fact, they do not appear very approachable. Normally, if I would see a bunch of people dressed the same with gold name tags walking around, I would have chatted with at least one or two but I did not chat with any of them. When riding our bikes along the shoreline between Clearwater & Dunedin there are single story motels refurbished & landscaped nicely with No Vacancy Signs out with not one single car parked in their lots. We were told that these clone Scientologists walking around live in these motels and have given up all their material possessions so hence no cars. There is a new 8 story condo building in construction, on Cleveland St, visible from the Marina. Rumor has it that Tom Cruise has purchased the top 2 floors as a penthouse suite. There obviously are different levels of Scientologists, because I'm sure Tom Cruise wouldn't be walking around in the navy vest & pants. Welcome to Scientology Land.
Enough of that, otherwise the location is good-we took a free trolley over to Clearwater Beach, which has a totally different feel-very hustle bustle with a lot of people in bathing suits instead of navy blue. The beach is long & wide and was full of people swimming, playing and soaking up the sun. It is very touristy, with a Pirate Ship Ride, a jaws boat ride, fishing charters and jet ski rentals. The City Marina on the Beach side has older wooden, fixed docks not very well maintained. There are many good restaurants along the beach drive.
 |
| Iron Girl half Marathon, 4,000 participants |
The weekly Crafts/food festival is just a few steps from the Marina, lots of tents, prepared food & Food Trucks but alas no fresh produce. The festival brought a lot of people to the shoreline as did the Iron Girl half marathon in the adjacent park-lots of activity waterside.
 |
| Deserted small Island |
 |
| Marina @ Caladesi Island |
We took our dinghy out a few times, once over to Clearwater Beach for lunch, once to a deserted small island and our longest dinghy ride was to Caladesi Island State Park and Honeymoon Island.
 |
| Caldesi Island Beach |
 |
| Pretty water |
 |
| Tarpon Springs Sponge Dock |
 |
| Annual Art Festival |
The Jolly Trolley system is great-we used it again and this time took it all the way to Tarpon Springs. We walked around the sponge docks and then we found a really great annual Art Fest in the Park with many beautiful displays.
Years ago, my friend Jeri & I visited Dunedin and thought it was a cute quaint small town. I wanted to make sure we checked it out during our Gulf exploration. Originally, we were going to dock there but after reading Active Captain reviews, we thought it would be better to stay in Clearwater & bike the 3 miles to Dunedin. The bike trail that connects the 2 cities is great-well maintained and there are coffee shops, deli's and bike stores along the trail. Dunedin is a small, relatively quiet village with a main street of shops and restaurants and parks line the shore. We stopped @ the library and the nice older volunteer told me that Dunedin has become too touristy for her over the last 10 years so she doesn't go downtown anymore. It's a tad touristy but not bad compared to many of the waterfront cities around.
 |
| Morton Plante Hospital |
 |
| What's left of the Biltmore |
Surrounding the city of Clearwater along the waterfront are some beautiful neighborhoods that we toured on our bikes. Very upscale homes, golf courses and private clubs. We came across Morton Plant Hospital where years ago, my Dad had his open heart surgery and then in 2004, where he died. I did not realize we were so close to this location. I remembered that the Hospital did have a great view of the water and was in a nice neighborhood. On both of my Dad's visits to the Hospital, I had stayed @ the nearby Belleview-Biltmore Estate, so we rode our bikes there and found that they have recently torn down most of the structure, which had once been billed as the "largest occupied wooden structure in the world". They have saved the historic original lobby and 3 of the floors above the lobby. When I stayed there, it very much reminded me of the hotel in the movie, The Shining. The halls were narrow, the floors wood and sloping. There were rumors of it being haunted. I know I heard lots of unexplained sounds when I stayed there-my imagination-I'm not so sure! Now it is located in a gated private golf club and the area is under construction.
 |
| Stacy & Michael's condo building |
Our last night there, we invited a couple we met @ the Marina, Stacy & Michael, who docked their boat next to ours the first day we were there. They live in the beautiful high rise condo building that you can see from the Marina. They had given us helpful info on what we needed to see and do while visiting. We enjoyed cocktails with them on board, then they treated us to our new favorite-Thai @ a nearby restaurant. It was a pleasure meeting them & hopefully someday they will be living their dream like we are and we will meet again!
 |
| One of our beach finds, A Whelk Egg Casing |
 |
| Another beautiful Adventure |
Cruising into Sarasota Bay, Marina Jack's is the main Marina in downtown Sarasota and this is where we had stayed earlier this year before heading to Marathon. We decided to stop back because we had missed touring the local Botanical Gardens and heard they were definitely worth a visit. Marina Jack's has mooring balls, which was really good this visit since a boat show was in progress on the majority of their docks. Of course we had to tour the boat show and Doug had to drool over all the fancy, expensive boats with those huge, multiple motors hanging off their transoms. A little tough to live on but they do go a heck of a lot faster than our Day Dreams and use a whole lot more fuel!
The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens are wonderful and are walking distance from Marina Jack's. The Gardens have green houses, orchids, bonsai trees, waterfalls, a large variety of trees, plants & flowers. Their featured display in the mansion at this time was very interesting and special: Rainforest Masks of Costa Rica. What the docent told us, is that the craft of carving these masks had almost gone extinct from Costa Rica 30 years ago when a small select group of young artists from the village of Boruca were selected to be trained in this dying art. "The mask carving began centuries ago when the Costa Rican natives needed a way to protect themselves from invading conquistadors. Using wood from Balsa & Cedar trees abundant throughout the Central American country, the Borucan Indians began carving ornate, menacing masks with malevolent spirits, known as Diabiltos, to frighten the invaders." Many of the artists today are descended from the original mask carver families" and now they not only carve the "Diablos" they carve beautiful happy "Ecologico" masks with a shaman face surrounded by flora & fauna. Each mask takes about a week to carve and 3-4 days to paint-all done by hand. "Now 60% of the 1,500 residents of this small village make their living from their artistry.
It's always a sad day when we must say our Good-byes to our friends and move on. The weather continues to be sunny and very warm, so we decided to stop back @ one of our favorite anchorages on the Gulf side: Cayo Costa State Park in Pelican Bay. We were really surprised how busy the anchorage was-as many boats as there were Easter Sunday and this is not a weekend or holiday. The Manatees have moved in and we also spotted a gator while out in our dinghy.
One last important stop before we cross over the Okachoobee Waterway back to the east coast, Cape Coral to see my bro Tom & his wife Rita. We decided to try the anchorage across the street from his house called Bimini Basin. It was great, there weren't too many boats anchored and some of them, we think are permanently moored there. Tom's next door neighbor's daughter who lives a short distance down the street let us use their dock to tie up our dinghy instead of using the public park dinghy dock which is good too but farther away from Tom & Rita's home. We went to the Naples Greyhound Racing Track with Tom & Rita and put $2.00 bets down on a few of the races and actually came out a few bucks ahead due to my expert way of picking the winner. I pick the dog who pees while they are walking out onto the track, very scientific, Ha! The weather was perfect and we sat outside right in line with the finish line. It was fun! The Farmers Market right in downtown, actually has a lot of produce to buy too. 
