Up early (too excited to bother with sleep!) and after being fortified with a Stevie Special Breakfast, we returned the marina keys and backed quietly out of the slip. All modesty aside, it was a fantastic reverse, turn the wheel and head down the channel - incredibly calm. 
Then we headed over to the St. Pete Marina for fuel. Very nice entry into the marina, circle around, nice line-up to the fuel dock, and slowly, slowly motor the boat up to the dock. Give a quick burst of reverse to stop the boat before it touches the dock - and get a full blast of forward! Instead of gently coming to a stop, it was full speed ahead towards the dock! And the further I pushed the throttle into reverse, the faster forward it went! Ooohhhh nnnnooooo!!!
And of course there was no time to yell, "STEVE !!!!" and let him come to the rescue (and heroically shoulder the blame if the boat got damaged)! Other thoughts of throwing my hands up or running away quickly flitted through and were discarded. Okay, going towards the dock fast is really bad, but we can go forward fast away from the dock fairly safely. Yank the wheel over to the left and zoom away from the dock. Steve leaps (heroically) across the boat and dives into the engine room where he discovers that the throttle cable had disconnected so every time I pushed the throttle down into reverse, it went forward!
We made one more attempt to dock, but were still moving too fast so Steve set the cable so we could slowly motor along in forward. I then circled the marina while he tied down the throttle and fixed it so we had reverse. After circumnavigating the marina four or five times, he was done and we had reverse again. We very slowly and cautiously approached the fuel dock again - coasting, a touch of throttle, coast, gently bump the dock and, whew!, tie up. Steve filled the boat with fuel and the jerrycans and for his sins, a bird pooped on his head! They also decided to decorate the boat, in 30 minutes no less!
Armed with both forward and reverse, and weighed down with bird droppings we headed back out into Tampa Bay - we're on our way, wahooo! Sailed most of the way down the Bay, motored under the Skyway Bridge and successfully navigated the little channel south of Egmont Key. Then WE TURNED LEFT!!! (At the end of every sail we've taken since getting the boat, when heading back we've always asked each other, "Should we turn left (towards the Keys, the Caribbean, the Bahamas) or right (back to work and the real world). Turning left this time was especially significant.) About an hour later we were heading towards the Longboat Key bridge.
After navigating the short stretch of the intercoastal waterway, we pulled into the anchorage. We smoothly 'drove' in, circled around and ran aground! After much discussion and trying different angles of forward and reverse (we have reverse!), we managed to get un-aground. We circled around some more and promptly ran aground again! This time I didn't tell Steve and hoped he wouldn't notice as I gently backed off the sandy place we'd driven into. Finally, we found a clear spot and dropped the anchor! Now remember, this is a place we have anchored in 4 or 5 times already...
At this point we were well ready for our bottle of Champagne (thank you, folks from BA!) which we had carefully lugged across the Atlantic for our first night 'at sea'. We had a toast up on deck and watched a beautiful sunset. What a wonderful day!
Then we headed over to the St. Pete Marina for fuel. Very nice entry into the marina, circle around, nice line-up to the fuel dock, and slowly, slowly motor the boat up to the dock. Give a quick burst of reverse to stop the boat before it touches the dock - and get a full blast of forward! Instead of gently coming to a stop, it was full speed ahead towards the dock! And the further I pushed the throttle into reverse, the faster forward it went! Ooohhhh nnnnooooo!!!
And of course there was no time to yell, "STEVE !!!!" and let him come to the rescue (and heroically shoulder the blame if the boat got damaged)! Other thoughts of throwing my hands up or running away quickly flitted through and were discarded. Okay, going towards the dock fast is really bad, but we can go forward fast away from the dock fairly safely. Yank the wheel over to the left and zoom away from the dock. Steve leaps (heroically) across the boat and dives into the engine room where he discovers that the throttle cable had disconnected so every time I pushed the throttle down into reverse, it went forward!
We made one more attempt to dock, but were still moving too fast so Steve set the cable so we could slowly motor along in forward. I then circled the marina while he tied down the throttle and fixed it so we had reverse. After circumnavigating the marina four or five times, he was done and we had reverse again. We very slowly and cautiously approached the fuel dock again - coasting, a touch of throttle, coast, gently bump the dock and, whew!, tie up. Steve filled the boat with fuel and the jerrycans and for his sins, a bird pooped on his head! They also decided to decorate the boat, in 30 minutes no less!
Armed with both forward and reverse, and weighed down with bird droppings we headed back out into Tampa Bay - we're on our way, wahooo! Sailed most of the way down the Bay, motored under the Skyway Bridge and successfully navigated the little channel south of Egmont Key. Then WE TURNED LEFT!!! (At the end of every sail we've taken since getting the boat, when heading back we've always asked each other, "Should we turn left (towards the Keys, the Caribbean, the Bahamas) or right (back to work and the real world). Turning left this time was especially significant.) About an hour later we were heading towards the Longboat Key bridge.
After navigating the short stretch of the intercoastal waterway, we pulled into the anchorage. We smoothly 'drove' in, circled around and ran aground! After much discussion and trying different angles of forward and reverse (we have reverse!), we managed to get un-aground. We circled around some more and promptly ran aground again! This time I didn't tell Steve and hoped he wouldn't notice as I gently backed off the sandy place we'd driven into. Finally, we found a clear spot and dropped the anchor! Now remember, this is a place we have anchored in 4 or 5 times already...
At this point we were well ready for our bottle of Champagne (thank you, folks from BA!) which we had carefully lugged across the Atlantic for our first night 'at sea'. We had a toast up on deck and watched a beautiful sunset. What a wonderful day!
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