Days 36-38 - Tarpon Springs to Venice, FL

We stayed an extra day in Tarpon Springs and rode bikes to the post office and grocery store and beyond.  It appeared to us that it's a very poor city.  We left the marina early and decided to go farther than Sarasota in order to get to Ft.Myers in 2 days.  Traveling through this portion of the intercoastal waterway was very beautiful - the water was gorgeous and the homes spectacular, however there were many sections that were very narrow as well as confusing.  We came close to running aground a couple of times and had to watch the markers very carefully. 

We stayed Tuesday night in the bayou near the Vinoy Hotel and intended to dinghy ashore but ended up staying on board as Mike had to take care of some business.  We ate dinner and sat in the flybridge looking at the beautiful lights of the city all around us.  We were getting ready to hop into bed and heard a loud boom.  There was smoke coming out of the compartment housing the inverter and it looked like our boat was on fire!  Fortunately, that wasn't the case but we did lose the inverter.

Yesterday we left about 8:00 AM and headed to Venice, FL and are currently at the Crows Nest Marina which is very close to the Venice Inlet from the Gulf of Mexico and because of that, it was extremely difficult getting into a slip.  We had a mechanic on board this morning and we've ordered a new inverter which will be installed tomorrow so this afternoon we're using the marina bikes and checking out the small town.  It's beautiful here and I want to check out the beach later.  It looks like we'll be here another day and night and then head to Ft. Myers and from there hopefully across Lake Okeechobee if the water levels are high enough.  If not, unfortunately we'll have to go around Florida which adds another 206 miles.  Stay tuned......