March 12, 2009: Clearwater to Anna Maria Island, Fl

Our destination for today was Anna Maria island where we planned to anchor out for the evening. As we were leaving the Marina, we finally got a picture of a really fun party boat designed to look like a huge pirate ship that we had seen coming in.

When we reached Anna Maria island, it was another of those narrow channel and shallow water everywhere situation. It was so shallow that there was a fisherman in the water near the channel marker who was not even waist deep. Unfortunately it was very windy and as we tried to anchor, the wind pushed us into a sandbar. In struggling to get the anchor up, the windlass was damaged and it became a real adventure. Tom wound up taking the dinghy off the back of the boat and boating up near the anchor and pulling it up hand over hand and hoisting it into the little dinghy. Then we moved the boat to deeper water and dropped the anchor again.

Now we were farther from the narrow channel to the island, but undaunted we took the dinghy up the marked way into a breakfront where we could tie up. We were delighted to find a free trolley that ran the length of the 7 mile barrier island. We took the trolley to Spring Street and found the wonderful Sand Bar restaurant. Walking out on the grayed planking to the entrance, we found there was a two hour wait to sit at a table on the beach, but we happily did not have to wait that long to get a table inside. Here the seafood was more unusual, and I had Mediterranean Mahi Mahi – the fish was cooked in tomatoes with feta cheese. Not like NC, but not bad. Once again we could watch the sun sink into the sea.