Day 94 Venice, FL

Lots of nice homes along the GIWW


Us at the Beach, Venice


Us at Caseys Pass (Beach) in Venice


Dolphins are too fast to get a good picture


Bradenton is a very nice upscale area that I could enjoy spending some time at but instead we left at 8:30 am with no fog. That was a surprise. Today was an exceptional morning of Dolphin sightings. We saw dolphins all day long; in fact 4 of them swam beside us for quite a distance. We both took turns driving while the other had the opportunity to look at them up close off of the aft-deck as them kept pace with our boat. Just amazingly beautiful, never get tired of them. They just rise up slowly like they are on display. We traveled 42 miles to Venice through some of the most expensive real estate we have seen since entering Florida. Sarasota, Longboat Key, Siesta Key were absolutely gorgeous. So many beautiful homes on the waterway along with nice looking boats also.
We are amazed at the number of mistakes in the different waterway guides we have purchased. Today was a mess trying to find Crow’s-Nest Marina since the waterway guide ocation was about 2-miles off as well as on the wrong side of the Intracoastal Waterway. A phone call to Crow’s-nest straightened it out and the staff said that it has been wrong in the guide as long as he has worked here. He said they get telephone calls all the time from confused transients. Crow nest Marina is a nice stop.

We are the only transient boat here at this marina tonight. I suspect on the week-ends this place rocks. Since we are moored on the Venice Gulf “Inlet”, we have been entertained watching the fishing boats come in from the Gulf as evening approaches. There are a ton of Center Console manufactures here in Florida. We see a lot of Pursuits, Key West’s, Edgewater’s and Grady Whites.

We rode bicycles to the beach area and on into downtown area. We rode for so long that I decided to go back to the boat and missed everything. Venice is a very nice community with a very upscale quaint downtown business district including lots of specialty shops, cafés and restaurants. And of course Tom found the “Soda Fountain” and old fashioned theme ice cream specialty store. He rates it very high on the rating scale.