The morning we left our mooring @ Marina Jacks, we headed to Longboat Key Resort & Marina. It was one of our shortest legs to our journey. It didn't even take an hour to reach the Marina. We were hoping to be assigned the same slip we had last year but it wasn't available so we were assigned a slip in front of the pool, which was fine! Rachel & George were docked here along with Betsy & Dave, Julie & Tom and a few permanent boaters we had met last year. Jennifer & Tina are still working in the office. It was nice to be back. Most things were almost back to normal. The Pickle Ball Court, the Restaurant and the tennis courts were reopened. The showers were on a reserve & key schedule for a week which was very weird. They still supplied pool towels and of course the pool & hot tub were open.
The month flew by. KKRachel left after a few days but we were able to enjoy a few cocktail hours with them before they departed for Vero Beach. Lauryl Anne arrived 2 days after us. We played Pickle Ball a few times a week with David & Tricia and even played a round of tennis with them. David & Tricia had rented a car so we were able to go to dinner in Sarasota, Bradenton, Siesta Key & Anna Maria Island. We made it to Sarasota's Farmers Market twice. Doug & I rode our bikes often. We checked out the Farmers Market at Coquina Beach by bike. Coquina Beach is a really nice area-nice wide long pretty sand beach, great facilities and not too busy. We took our dinghies out a few times into the bay. The weather was nice but not hot enough for us to swim in the Gulf. We walked the beach and visited the resort a few times. The main Resort's restaurant & outdoor bar was recently remodeled and we enjoyed drinks & lunch there. We dined out often & enjoyed listening to live music with our good friends David & Tricia.
We celebrated our anniversary & my birthday while @ LBK. David & Tricia joined us at Tsunami's in downtown Sarasota for our anniversary and The Beach House in Bradenton, overlooking the beach & beautiful Gulf, for my birthday. That night, we were rewarded with a great sunset, good food & wonderful friends.
Garry & Jacque rented a VRBO in Bradenton for 5 days and the 6 of us enjoyed a great visit. They hosted dinner one night at their rental. Another night, we dined on Lauryl Anne and feasted on a dinner prepared by David and Tricia. We all hopped in the car one day and drove to Siesta Key where we experienced stop & go traffic, a big wide beach full of people and all the restaurants packed. We finally settled on drinks at an outdoor Craft Beer place on their patio overlooking the street with a live band entertaining us and then dinner @ SKOBS. Another day, the 6 of cruised by dinghy for lunch at The Dry Dock on the patio overlooking the water & after lunch we hung out at a sandbar while Dolphins & Manatees circled us. Their last night, we were lucky to get a table at Kettle of Fish where we listened to good music and even some of us danced!
The Pandemic is still with us, vaccines for people our age & older continue to be in high demand so still difficult to get. Case numbers & deaths are decreasing as vaccination rates rise. Masking & social distancing are becoming more relaxed with the general public. We still mask @ indoor public areas and we are not eating in any indoor restaurants although many others are taking that risk. There are still 60,000 new cases/day & on average 900 deaths/day from COVID-19. During our month @ LBK Marina, we borrowed David & Tricia's rental car and drove 4 hours to Homestead, FL to get our 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. On our way back, we stopped at Esther's for a nice dinner & a sleep over.
We borrowed Lauryl Anne's rental car once more for a day to drive to St Petersburg to check out neighborhoods. We are thinking of purchasing a house in St Pete next year. We took our bikes with us, so once there, we parked & got on our bikes. We really like the Historic Northeast and the Crescent Lake Neighborhoods. We did talk to a Sotheby's Realtor named Tyler who was working the desk at the office downtown St Pete.
We really enjoyed our month @ LBK with our dear friends. Making lasting memories.
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| My Love |
We anchored for a night on the west side of Franklin Lock so we could get an early start to lock through to Moorehaven for the next night. Even then, by the time we reached Moorehaven, the city dock & the new private dock were completely full. Next time, we need to call the private dock for a reservation. Usually it is not a problem. Luckily, the Moorehaven lock was still open so we locked through and anchored by the Dam. This was our first time doing this and if there would have been a boat there, we would have had to use the dolphins to tie to, which we have never done & really hope we never have to. We have friends that like tying up to the dolphins so it is doable but they have a bigger boat. We did have quite a few AirBoats go screaming by throughout the evening but we were in a safe location. We woke to fog but that's not really a problem while in the "O" ditch and luckily it cleared by the time we hit the Okeechobee Lake. This season's passage, we have locked through with more boats than usual: Franklin lock with 4 boats & the St Lucie lock with 5 boats. 
