Today is a special day - my Mom's birthday. I keep her in my memories and am thankful for having had such wonderful parents.
The day starts (surprise) with a brisk headwind. But we are learning - when we picked the campsite last night with a steeply sloping beach to minimize the challenge of low tide. This morning we could see we picked it just right. A nearby site would have had a muddy slog.
We paddle a few miles to a Publix dock on Treasure Island. Yep, the grocery store has a dock for customers to pull up to. Within three blocks we can do laundry, have a huge breakfast at Ricky's, and resupply at the pharmacy and grocery. Fran was chatting with the 20 year old checkout boy who could tell that we were boating because of the nylon paddling clothes, neoprene boots and ziplock wallet. His reaction to our trip? "That's Raw".
Today we got back outside in the gulf to see surf break on beach sand for the first time. The sea changes so quickly. We started in moderate chop and were soon getting tossed in three foot swells. Within a two hour period it intensified, went calm, intensified again, and finished calm for an easy beach surf landing.
The NOAA charts for our destination are very wrong. The two islands merged into one long ago. Fortunately Russell had told us that. Local knowledge is great - we still hope to find local paddlers who want to join us for a day or two here and there and share their stories.
We found a nice campsite on open sand. The wind forecast is just 5-10 so that should be fine. But things do change quickly.
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