What a great city Sarasota is!

And a fun place to celebrate the holidays.

We are looking at a short trip today, only about 2 1/2 hours, so we aren’t in a hurry to get out of Marina Jacks.

We had a nice leisurely breakfast at O’Leary’s Tiki Bar and Grill.

Another restaurant at the marina.

As we took our sweet time getting out of there, we still had time to enjoy the sights.

Marina Jack turned out to be one of our favorite stops.

Right outside of the marina is a field of mooring balls so you could anchor out and dinghy in if that is your preference.

We haven’t done a mooring ball yet so I guess we’ll have to search YouTube on how to do that.

And our dinghy skills are questionable at best.

Oh well.

Homes Around Sarasota

To say the homes in the area are beautiful is like saying Mt. Everest is tall.

It doesn’t even come close to describing the “wow” factor.

Huge homes with huge yachts docked right in front.

So cool.

Many, Many Bridges

On this journey today we had quite a few bridges that we have to tackle.

Some we can breeze right under and others we have to have opened for us.

It’s going to be interesting.

Crazy Traffic

The holiday season on the water brings with it kids out of school and parents off work making the waterway a very busy thoroughfare.

It started out busy and just continued to get busier as the day went on.

I was already ready to be at the marina!

Glass House

There was one house that really stood out.

It was out on a point and had windows on every side.

Spectacular.

Birds Out There

It is always great seeing birds out here with us.

But what I didn’t expect to see was shoals where the water is so shallow that the birds are out there just walking around.

Like that’s normal.

Swing Bridge

One of the bridges that we faced today was a swing bridge.

The bridge operator asked Sam work with the other big boats on the order of going through.

That’s the first time I remember that happening.

I guess he wanted us to be the responsible party.

But it all worked out and even though it was very busy, everyone kept a positive attitude out there.

Intracoastal Waterway

As we continued down the ICW, we saw why bird island was named appropriately.

I have never seen so many pelicans hanging out together in a tree.

Docking in the Wind

Once again Sam has to fight the wind to get us into the slip stern in at Fisherman’s Wharf Marina.

I honestly don’t know how he did it.

While he was trying to avoid hitting the dock on the back of the boat, there were boaters whizzing by in front of us.

The busy didn’t stop.

So glad to be at our destination.

Sam has cousins in Venice so they stopped by for a visit.

While they were there, we saw this incredible sunset.

And it just kept getting better and better.

Fisherman’s Wharf

We were really excited to get to Venice and get settled.

Not only did we get to visit family but this marina was friendly, quiet (even though a lot of construction was going on) and had a fantastic restaurant onsite.

And the birds really seem to enjoy it too.

A tremendous honor, though, was to meet a Coast Guard Auxiliary Officer, Dave.

He happened to be docked right next to us and we found out that he is also a pilot.

I wonder how many pilots are boaters?

It seems like they go hand in hand.

Dave was gracious enough to give us a Vessel Safety Check while we were there.

How cool is that?!?

Venice, Florida

We stayed in Venice for three nights and had a chance to walk around downtown.

It’s just a walk over the bridge and when you turn to the right, you can see where we are docked.

Do you see us down there?

Venice has a theater where you can see Broadway production plays.

After the bridge, we turned right to enjoy Historic Downtown.

It’s really a beautiful place.

A rainbow even tried to come out.

We stopped at a pub on the second floor to get a bird’s eye view.

They have planted palm trees up and down this street.

On our way back we stopped at this little park with a beautiful mural and fountain.

All you have to do is turn around and look down to get this map.

That should help you get around.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Fisherman’s Wharf in Venice.

Where the sunsets are definitely one of the best parts of the day.

Our Thoughts