Days 46-47 at Longboat Key Club and Moorings

    Continuing our recent theme of travel one day and takeing several off, we spent the past two full days enjoying the many amenities of the Longboat Key Club.

We took the shuttle across to the Gulf of Mexico and the wonderful white sand beach. Here is the Admiral enjoying the 90F water. The waves were 2-3 feet high so it was a little work getting out to the sand bars just off the shore. Terry found the waves reminescent of her youth when she lived in Hawaii.

I was amazed when they set up our beach umrella as the attendant just pulled out a cordless drill and in seconds he had a clean, deep hole to support the umbrella...

I am standing at the edge of the water and the view is back toward a pool, 5 restaurants, etc. The Admiral is hiding from the Sun under the umbrella just right of center.

The rocks in this picture are part of the breakwater to protect New Pass into Sarasota, and it defines the southern end of Longboat Key. This was a few minute walk along the beach from our umbrella.

If I look like "all business" it is because I am anxiously awaiting my Grilled Grouper Caesar Salad for lunch. That was quite possibly the best Caesar salad (with meat) that I have ever had! -ever!

This is "MOONDANCE". We had met her owners Berwick & Alexis in St. Pete and ran into them again at the pool by the marina. We went out to dinner with them on Day 46. They are from Louisiana but are in the process of staging there boat here so that they can start the Great Loop next January. We had a great time at dinner and promised to meet up again in a year or so somewhere along the Loop.

You might begin to think that all we do is eat... Well, Day 47 was Grandson Will's 3 and a half birthday party. His real Birthday is December 31 so you can see the reason for his "half birthday" party. Obviously we did not attend the party in Houston, but we did meet up with his Great Grandmother, Bobi Sanderson and celebrated in absentia at dinner near St. Armand's Circle. The "Circle" is full of great restaurants and upscale (and off beat) shops. Some of them have labels that read "London, Paris, New York and St. Armands". FORTUNATELY, we did not have time to shop on the way to dinner. We took the following picture to send to Will to celebrate his half birthday. Also joining us for dinner also were long time friends Jim Griffith and Jack Denison along with Jack's daughter in law, Cindy Denison.  Inparticular, I enjoyed trading cruising stories (lies?) with Jack.

I mentioned in the last post that there were 9.5 miles of walk/jog/bike path, which also wanders through the golf courses. I thought that this two-way underpass was really unusual, and it was complete with the sign giving ultimate right of way to walkers...

I thought that I would close with one last picture of Lucky Us (barely visible) through the marina entrance with a restaurant on the left and the ship's store on the right...