St. Pete Adventure

For the summer we made a deal with a gentleman who was taking his boat North, to rent his slip in Tampa at Westshore Yacht Club for 6 months. Our trip down here in April took 2 days (see "Movin' on up...or Down"). We make the short 1 hour 27 minute drive as many Fridays as we can & then make our way back to Crystal River Monday morning. Most weekends we  run the dinghy around, explore the area by bike or just hangout at the pool & on Pau Hana. We have met some great folks here in the marina.

This particular Saturday was just too darn nice to sit around so we decided to cruise down to St. Petersburg. St. Pete is about 1 hour 10 minutes away.

We straightened up and stowed everything, performed engine checks, started the gen set & engine & pulled out of the slip. We glided easily at 9 kts across a glassy Tampa Bay. The only waves were from passing boats and we saw numerous Dolphins swimming.

At about the half way point we saw the victims of the current Red Tide. Florida and mostly the Gulf of Mexico suffers from outbreaks of red tides, an algae called Karenia Brevis. Red tides have been recorded here in the Gulf as far back as the 1840’s. It can cause respiratory problems in people, kill fish and other marine life and even cause shellfish poisoning in people. We didn’t notice any breathing discomfort (I recall once in Clearwater where we couldn’t walk the beach without coughing). What we did see were the fish kills. All sorts of marine life, Catfish, Pufferfish, Horseshoe Crabs, Pilchards and others. This Gag Grouper was an unfortunate victim. 

More information for Red Tide and current mapped locations can be found on the FWC website https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/faq/.

The new St. Pete Pier is a prominent landmark and sits North of the entrance to the municipal marina (central yacht basin) and the Albert Witted Airport where you can see all sorts of different small aircraft taking off & landing.  As soon as you enter the markers at the entrance and travel around the rip rap jetty, there is a fantastic set of new floating docks for temporary mooring. Easy to get in and out. On a previous trip we went all the way in and to the other older set of fixed docks, forget those, here is where you want to dock. We tied up and after stubbing my toe on a cleat (when will I learn to put my darn footwear on) we celebrated with a beer.   

Once you dock, you note your slip number & enter your boat registration number, how long you want to stay & pay with a credit card at the kiosk. From there you can explore the Pier and downtown St. Petersburg. There is so much to do here and the new Pier is 100% better than the old one. 

There are restaurants, a brewery, splash park, green space, playground, vendors, history museum and an aquatic Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center. There is a free trolley that moves from end to end down the pier, grab a beer & jump on.

We grabbed a snack at the roof top of the Pier at Pier Tiki and enjoyed the phenomenal view of the bay.

This was a fantastic day trip, there is just no way to see everything in a day. We didn’t even get off of the Pier to explore downtown! I highly recommend this excursion, by boat or by land.