Boating on Tampa Bay

It's been pretty hot here in Florida lately so going for a boat ride on Tampa Bay was a great idea. Shelley and John share a lease on a motor boat in Tampa with 2 other familes so they offered to take Faye, Gary, and I out yesterday.

We (Shelley, John, Jake, Buddy the dog, Faye, Gary, and me) left at noon for the marina which is only a few minutes away from their house and found the boat sitting at a dock, clean and prepared for us. The lease includes valet service...bringing the boat in and out of the huge storage building and cleaning it for use. I was a little afraid it would be tiny but it was a fair size and also had a canopy for shade. We really needed that shade because it was really hot out and the sun was strong.

John is a novice at handling the boat so he was a little nervous about his abilities but he did just fine. With the boat moving, the air cooled to a perfect temperature and John also served as our guide, explaining a lot about the bay and what surrounded it. It was odd to see so many motor boats out there but not one sailboat.

Buddy was fine when we motored slowly but when John sped up he got very nervous looking for a hole to climb into. He's an angel of a dog, so huge and gentle. I preferred a slower speed, too, but just because it's more comfortable for watching the landscape.

When we returned to the dock, there was no spot to put the boat...valet service is nice but sometimes not efficient...so we went back out on the bay for a short while. When we returned, there was only a dicey spot for John to park in and he didn't think he could do it. Thankfully, one of the staff found us another spot and helped us dock the boat. John isn't afraid to ask for help when needed, thank heavens. Dennis would have attempted to park the boat on a postage stamp before admitting he couldn't do it.

We went back to Shelley's house and changed clothes and then Shelley, Faye, and I went out to look at a couple of houses Shelley and John are thinking of making an offer on. I made a point of saying it would be nice if the guest bedroom was painted white and lilac.

Then we all went out for dinner. I'm not sure of the name of the restaurant but I think it's the Collonade. Dinner was really, really good and the service matched it. My dinner with dessert and tip was about $24 so it wasn't an outrageous price for such a lovely dinner.

I had driven over to Tampa but Gary had to drive back because it was dark and I can't see to drive in the dark. We were supposed to follow Shelley and John out to the street which would send us easily on our way but somehow we followed the wrong car and got lost. I took out my trusty GPS and we finally were on our way.

It had been a lovely day spent with some of my favorite people. I don't take days like this for granted but appreciate them to the fullest.