032 Crab Pots, IPhones and Old Friends

On Thursday, December 7^th, we reluctantly left Crystal River and the manatees to head south.  We had seventy-two n/m to go to get to Clearwater, FL, so we were at the fuel dock at 7:30 to fill up the tank.  Note on this topic:  we have paid anywhere from $3.59 to $5.99 per gallon for diesel fuel.  More expensive than “at the pump” on land, AND the marinas don’t pay road tax on marine diesel.  So, they are really making money hand over fist, but what “whatcha gonna do?”

Got a nice sunrise picture:

 

The ride down was a bit “lumpy” but not too bad.   The big challenge in this area and with a lumpy sea is crab pots.  They are everywhere and hard to spot in other than a calm sea.  You can’t just put the boat on autopilot and zone out.   We were constantly dodging them.  The ramifications of hitting one is getting a line caught around your prop which can potentially be disastrous, bent shafts and ruined transmissions are not unknown. 

KatMat unfortunately hit one got some line around its prop, but luckily nothing got bound up.  Again, in a lumpy sea, they are hard to spot.  More on this later.

As we approached Clearwater, the waves calmed down a bit, and we saw a pretty big fire which you could smell miles offshore:

 

 These structures are under bridges and function the same way as guardrails on a highway.  The pelicans love them:

We pulled into Clearwater at about 2:30 p.m.  Nancy’s iPhone 7+ had been having trouble charging the last few weeks.   I’d have to go through multiple lightning cords, jiggle them, bow to the east, say a prayer, and burn incense to get that little lightning bolt icon to show up.  And when it did, I immediately said, “Ok, its charging, now nobody breath.”     And even when we did get it charged, the battery would drain in a few hours.    It was time to get a new phone. 

We took an Uber over to a Verizon store and bit the bullet on the fees and the even more fees (they even charge extra now for transferring the data).   (As painful as all the fees were, the annoying older gentleman next to us was worse.   For one hour we had to listen to him try and “get a deal” on a phone plan:  “look, I need this phone, I have an important congresswomen who calls me for advice all the time, I have people I need to talk to that I can’t talk to you about, blah blah blah.”   The salesperson and manager repeatedly and patiently explained that they can only offer what plans are available, but he would not let it go.  Finally, as we finished up He left with no new phone having wasted two people’s time.  Note to God:  please don’t let me get like that.)   Major bonus is that Nancy's new Iphone has the USB C connection, so goodbye to the tyranny of the lightning cord for her!

We appreciate our friends/family worrying about our safety at sea, we worry about your safety on land.  Passed this accident in the shopping complex with the Verizon store.  (How do you get that much speed up in shopping complex?)

The next day we tackled some chores: worked on month-end financial statements for my client most of the day.  KatMat had a line to take off their prop.  Glad to note that my wet suit and scuba gear came in handy for Matt has he cut the crab pot line off his prop.   

 (Of course, there is one ticked off crab fisherman out there, but c'est la vie.)

That evening Nancy and I visited a college friend of hers, Jack Berlin and his wife at their condo a few miles away.  They hadn’t seen each other since 1977!    We went to their beachfront condo for the sunset, and got this shot from the pool area:

We had a lovely visit and were impressed with Jack’s large collection of shark’s teeth all gathered up on beach walks.   Jack's father, who recently passed away, had been a team physician at Duke University (where Nancy and Jack went to college) and Jack told us that  Coach K had called him a couple of times to express his condolences: I was impressed by that as well!.

 

Dave

Odometer:  1,802 n/m