Days 49-50 Heavy rains then a nice travel day

I have heard the old line "if you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait 10 minutes" many times.  In Florida I have heard "if you don't like the weather, just walk across the street" several times now. Well, yesterday we stayed over at the Cape Haze Marina an extra night because of the rain-wind-thunderstorm forecast. Good move! Actually, in the morning it was relatively rain free so we put on our rain slickers and took the electric scooters about 2.3 miles to a wonderful (marine oriented) Ace Hardware and to a Publix grocery store. The poor scooters were really struggling on the trip home due to the heavy loads which included a case of water! From Noon to midnight most of the area had from 2 to 6 inches of rain. So the last half of the day was spent in comfort hunkered down on the boat.
  Today, we decided to move on a little further south to the Charlotte Harbor area, and we were blesed with light winds and only scattered white clouds.

Just after leaving the Cape Haze Marina, we saw this ferry (tug and barge combination) crossing the Intracoastal. Since the barge was at one end, the vehicles would drive on, and then the ferry turned around during the crossing so at the other side all of thee vehiclees had to back off...
     We arrived at Burnt Store Marina about 2:30 pm, after a short, uneventful trip of 22.6 miles. We did have to wait nearly 30 minutes for the swing bridge on the causeway out to Boca Grande.

No big deal, but it is a little disappointing to arrive at a bridge just as it is closing. The Admiral did remind me that I did get to "practice" holing us in one place in a fairly narrow channel with the tide rushing in... Of course, that made me feel a lot better (NOT).

   Burnt Store Marina is a really nice area, but except for the on-site restaurant, there are no services of any kind for 8 miles in either direction. However, thanks to the Admiral, we are well stocked.

This photo shows the office, fuel dock and restaurant, and altogether there are 291 slips, which makes it the largest marina in the area. We had lunch on the boat so after checking in there was plenty of time for a nap...

   Then it was pool time! The pool was about 100 yards away, and entry on one side was via a wooden bridge over a small man made lake.

The pool was over 100 feet long and most of it was 4.5 feet or deeper. Definitely not a kiddies pool. Well, the Admiral approved of the hot tub, and I even managed to swim a (very) few laps.

After the swim, we had a very nice dinner in the Porto Bello Restaurant at the marina.

The weather is supposed to be stormy for the next two day and there is the Fourth of July Holiday to deal with...  The bottom line is that we will probably stay here at least for a total of 4 nights. The Admiral has charted some nice day trips from here by both big boat and dingy when the weather clears up so we may stay longer??? Our grand non-plan is to stay in this general area for 2+ weeks before we cross over to the east coast of Florida.