Westons Go South: Sarasota

Wednesday, April 13

Field Club, Sarasota

We left Bradenton for Sarasota. We had a nice motor along the ditch. We saw more mansions and boats (they’re getting bigger), and went under more bridges. Most of these bridges open only on a set schedule. You have to get there at just the right time or you end up waiting; up to twenty or thirty minutes. We timed most of them well, but a couple of them we ended up waiting almost the whole time interval. That wasn’t so bad, but one of the bridges had a REALLY crabby tender. He wouldn’t answer a radio call half the time, and was crabby whenever he had to talk. When he started the siren (the opening signal), Sam hurried us up to the bridge because a lot of boats were waiting to go through by then and Sam didn’t want to hold anyone up. Well, the bridge didn’t open. Instead, the tender snapped at us to move away from the fenders. We didn’t even know what that meant. Still the bridge didn’t open. The tender snapped at us again, and then we figured out that he wanted us to move away from the bridge out past the retaining walls. We did, and he finally opened. What a jerk!

We motored on down the ICW and finally arrived at the Field House. What a beautiful place! It was originally Marshall Field’s Florida home, and what a home! It was absolutely stunning. They’ve done a wonderful job of converting it into a country, tennis, swimming, and boating club. Everyone there was so nice.

We met a really nice couple from the Isles Yacht Club, and we ended up having dinner with them. What a nice evening.

Thursday, April 14

We got out our bikes and took our laundry to a Laundromat. Since we couldn’t carry very much, we only took our absolutely “crisis” laundry. Then we took the folded clothes back to the boat and set out for the grocery store. We managed to pack quite a lot into our backpacks and carry bags. It was a relief to get those chores done!