S/V Barefoot Departs

Well we finally left Bradenton for the first leg of our cruise! After a load of wash, some last-last minute shopping, and a trip to our storage unit, we left Twin Dolphin Marina about noon on Wednesday. That day we just went about 4 miles down the Manatee River for an early morning departure down the coast.

We were underway the next day around 3:30 AM transiting the lower section of the river in the dark (tricky).  We put the sails up just outside the river, sailing across Tampa Bay, out the Southwest channel, and then around 57 miles down the west coast of Florida to Boca Grande channel. It was a great sail, but a long cool day!

We anchored in Pelican Bay, Cayo Costa Island, Florida just before dark.  This is a beautiful anchorage that we have been in many times before.  It is interesting that this island was the subject of a magazine article that I (Tom) read almost 30 years ago that first piqued my interest in cruising.  That was before we even knew how to sail, but the concept of going places you could only reach by boat was fascinating to me; very fitting that it is our first stop on our cruise this year.

 We will be blogging about our trip regularly, but will be pushing out Facebook posts or emails only occasionally.  If you get a chance, check out our travels at http://svbarefoot.blogspot.com/.  There is a section in the upper left entitled Maps, with a link entitled Cruise 2011-12 that shows a Google map of our travels.

Tom
Cayo Costa Island
Lee County, Florida