Cold stares, thick fog, and low bridges

N 27 41.83

W 82 43.127

After days of waiting for the weather to calm down, we finally made it to Clearwater- and went into the Belleaire neighborhood to do some much-needed shopping.  Got some really cold stares from the walking dead that live here. As Christine says, you know all those old people that live on the east coast of Florida?  Well their parents live on this side.

We did look like the homeless with our backpacks and wheelie suitcases, stuffing our garbage into trash bins in our scruffy boat attire, but hey, that’s who we are, get over it.  When we got back to our dinghy some ancient crone with half a million dollars worth of plastic surgery was standing guard.  Hello, she says, I don’t believe I know you.  I know just about everyone that lives here.  We were on the sidewalk of her apartment building, so I guess we owed her an explanation.  She would last about 5 seconds in Harlem.  I did have a good time chatting her up, live on a boat for awhile and you’ll talk to a seagull.

So Sunday morning we pull out and head on down the ICW, when we get socked in with fog, which was awkward as the channel is pretty narrow and the water on each side about 2 ft deep.  You can’t see the channel markers and there’s always a bridge just ahead and the bridgetender won’t raise the bridge or answer the radio because every asshole in Florida is in his speedboat doing 40 mph in the blinding fog and if he answered every boater that wanted to talk to him he wouldn’t be able to give his porn site his full attention.  It’s daylight now and it looks like we’re in for more of the same.