North to Sarasota

Friday, October 8th - A light notherly breeze floods Charoltte Harbor with cool air. Too light to sail, we motor to Cape Haze to anchor with Caprice & Sabrina for the night.  Joanne & I rode our dinghy over to Don Pedro to walk the beach and swim in the Gulf water.  A Saturday of motoring up the ICW landed us at the historic Field Club.  It's on the national register of historic places; click here for history.  We walked around the beautiful grounds and out to US 41 before dinner at the club.  After breafast, motoring again, we moved to the Sarasota Yacht Club.

The SYC's brand new building sparkles.  In it we found a couple of  Lipton Cup trophys from the 1930s. The Lipton Cup races are held in Southern California so someone went a long way to race.  We walked a  short way to St Armand's Circle to wander through the art gallerys.    

Monday morning,  the crews of Caprice and Eagle's Wings decided to transit Big Sarasota Pass, a  pass of shifting shoals and misfortune for those not armed with local knowledge. One local told us to head 275 M; another prescribed 240 M. Both courses would have run us onto the shoals, clearly visible to us once in the pass..  Information on the SYC website (a 210 M course) proved to be accurate.  Out in the Gulf, we motor sailed under clear skys south to Boca Grande.   Just awesome sailing!

To save about an hour, Caprice suggested we take the swash channel rather than the deep & safe water Boca Grande Pass.  As we rounded Boca Gande in seven feet of water, it seemed like we could almost shake hands with the folks wading off the beach. To starboard, water looked like the rapids on a river.  

We anchored in Pelican Bay for the night and motored home the next day.   All in all, another great adventure aboard Eagle's Wings!