Gulfport, FL & St. Petersburg, FL
Friday, February 2. We are staying at the Gulfport Municipal Marina for a week to explore Gulfport & St. Petersburg. We also need to catch up on paperwork, and general boat maintenance/cleaning when weather doesn’t permit us to venture out.
White egret landed on the boat—Darth couldn’t resist honking the horn. : )
Our first adventure is a bike ride on the Pinellas Trail, riding 6 miles to St. Petersburg’s Salvador Dali Museum.
This was set up for the Honor Ride for veterans on Saturday.
The dome behind has a 360 degree exhibit inside.
Inside the dome. The show consists of Dali’s artwork as well as his story.
Outside Dali’s famous mustache for photo ops.
The Dali museum was interesting. His artistic styles are intriguing and we learned alot about interpreting some of his work. I say some—as some I just couldn’t wrap my brain around with or without the explanation.
We saw three interactive exhibits while walking through. A virtual reality headset that allowed you to be inside three of his different paintings; a computer taking a headshot and placing you in a photo; and a computer asking you to describe a dream and then turning it into a painting.
I had just had a dream of riding a horse in the snow.
There was a room dedicated to Jr. and Senior Highschool student’s surreal artwork with the student’s explanation to what they were conveying with the premise of “Fears and Fascination of the Fantastic”. Truly some were amazing as well as disturbing given the topic. This exhibit reminded us of our daughter Britteney’s artwork in highschool as she explored different types of art.
Touring the museum took most of Friday and we decided to come back the next day for the Saturday market.
This guy was really good. He was playing ‘What a Wonderful World’ when I took this photo.
Does the dog love his shoes? Or??????
Moving on, we continued to ride our bikes along the Vinoy Park to Snell Isle.
Hammock bunk beds! We tried to imagine how the one on top got there.
It was a fun day out and we were glad to return to the boat. I’m sure Ms. Egret was happy to see us too. No honking.
Sunset at our dock.
Sunday and Monday, February 4th & 5th. Wet rainy days. We chatted with neighbor boaters and were given a list of anchorages to explore once we travel to the Keys.
Our view from inside the boat.
Later Monday we were able to go for a short bike ride and enjoyed a beer in the outside patio.
Tuesday, February 6th. Gulfport has a Tuesday market which we rode the bikes to. After getting delicious mochas we ventured to West Marine to purchase more rope for fixed docks, and rope chafes used when anchoring. We put alot of miles on our bikes this week!
Gulfport beach.
Wednesday, February 7th. Getting ready to leave the next day, we rode to a nearby Walmart. On the way we heard the screeching sound of birds and when I looked up they were green. The photo shows what they look like—I downloaded from google images after looking up what they were.
These are Monk parakeets. When I tried to get a photo, there were several on a power line—but ofcourse flew away before I took the photo.
Thursday, February 8th. We fueled, pumped out and said our goodbyes to our dock neighbors. Hoping to see them as we pass through Norfolk, VA. Heading to an anchorage near Sarasota.