During the latest month or so the HideAways along with the usual
suspects, Smooth Sailing and Miandros had been
planning a quick escape to a small bayou in nearby south St Petersburg Tampa Bay
The trip includes, as all of them do, a nice sail across
Boca Ciega Bay after which we must negotiate two bascule bridges which usually
require a long wait dictated by our state governments’ wisdom that effectively
ruined the historic perfect timing of both.
(Read rich tea-drinking people
living nearby.)
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| Little Bayou St Petersburg Fl |
It’s The Time of Year Not Even the Sun Gets Up Before Mid Morning.
The lazy winter sun
gave the HideAways only one day of light to prepare the boat. Loading seven hours of mixed gas, bedding,
and chocolate stores along with a major attack of cleaning left HideAway sparkling and full
a week before the much anticipated sailing adventure.
Half past Saturday morning would feature what has become
known as a “cold start” for HideAway. There could be only one trip to the boat for
final provisioning. What ever finds its
way aboard joins the adventure, what ever doesn't is left at the dock, home,
truck or other unknown place to be found later.
As the week progressed the weather forecast went from “Lets
Go!!” to “Really?” Always the eternal
optimists, a requirement if you rely on wind to power your imaginings, the
mighty trio dreamed of Little Bayou charms.
The Church Choir Roadie (CCR)
The only potential shoal on the cruise was the multi-church
choir concert scheduled on Friday night.
The capts attendance was required as a perquisite for two days of
glorious messing about in boats.
Not that the capt minded really. Some music cannot be fully appreciated
recorded. Great music must be
experienced live much in the vein of the 60s era Airplane, sans the church, was
a spiritual experience to many.
Eight church choirs combined to sing Handel's "Hallelujah
Chorus” will shiver the timbers of the most crusted old salt. The shear power
of 200 voices will have your heart thumping and your eyes wet for no apparent
reason. It was a mind-blowing experience,
assuming you have one left after your Airplane trip of course.
The morning of the next day found the capt overheated with
fever. Getting a flu shot had worked well. For with only a prick of the arm, or maybe
the other way around, the capt was down for the count. No where to go, the HideAways could only
unpack and hack up the stuff of nightmares instead of cruising away the
weekend.
Now what to do with seven full hours of mixed gas that will
last for months and months of day sailing? Not to worry by the by, the chocolate stores
have been dealt with already. Urp.
SMALL BOATS ROCK!
