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Wayne.B

On Sun, 27 May 2012 19:48:07 -0400, wrote:

We burned about 2 gallons of gas, 2 people and a big yellow dog. The
ride was nice and not too crowded back in the mangroves. Ed saw an
otter. He wanted to go swim with it.

===

The wife and I took the runabout (Searay 270 Sundeck) for a nice
cruise up Pine Island Sound to Boca Grande Pass this afternoon. We
went out through the pass to watch some of the action at the tarpon
tournament - big mob of boats, some looking like factory teams but
most appeared to be mom and pop family boats. There are definitely
some big tarpon out there in the 6 to 7 foot range, We had a few
jump right next to us for no apparent reason and it really gets your
adrenaline going. Only out there for an hour or so but saw a bunch
of hook ups near by. The water is over 40 feet deep in many parts
of the channel and most of the tarpon looked like they started heading
for the bottom as soon as they wee hooked, very few fighting on the
surface. Most people were fishing light spinning rods and were
really struggling to get the fish up to the top.

After an hour or so of watching the tarpon fun we headed farther north
up the ICW to the town of Boca Grande which we had never before
visited by boat. It's very quaint and nautical, very reminiscent of
a little old New England harbor town. There's obviously a lot of big
old money there and some of the most elaborate covered boat houses
I've ever seen. We topped off our gas at the Boca Grande Marina, big
mistake at $5.49/gallon, most I've ever paid in the USA.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&cp=12&gs_id=4&xhr=t&q=reminiscent&bav =on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1015&bih=612&w rapid=tljp133816671978500&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=Cs7CT62xB46s8Q S5_IWlCw#um=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=boca+grande+fl orida&oq=Boca+Grande&aq=2&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_l=img.1. 2.0l10.4602.9282.0.14082.11.8.0.3.3.0.381.2050.0j3 j2j3.8.0...0.0.e8XfcYtMo7I&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r _qf.,cf.osb&fp=3e364ee48e5bea2e&biw=1015&bih=612

(Google images: Boca Grande Florida)

After cruising the shore line in Boca Grande we headed back out to the
ICW just south of Gasparilla Pass and started heading back down
towards Pine Island. For a little variety we took the back route
through Matalacha Pass (pronounced Matt La Shay) which is always an
interesting run down through the Pine Island back country.

https://www.google.com/search?q=matlacha&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u& source=univ&sa=X&ei=n8vCT4CrJoyk8QTro-y4Cw&sqi=2&ved=0CHYQsAQ&biw=1015&bih=612

(Google images: Matalacha Pass)

Back home about 4:30 PM, 80 nautical miles, 4 1/2 hours, about 40
gallons of fuel.