Road Trip (Pt. 5) St Petersburg

Sunday 1st October 2017

Today was a travel day.  We set off to travel the I-10 and the I-75 from Mobile, Alabama to St. Petersburg, Florida.  It was going to take 7.5 hours and we were armed with many ‘podcasts’ to keep us company.  We were traveling into a different time zone and had been invited to a concert by the ‘Pinellas Park Civic Orchestra’. Caroline [our friend and host for the next few days] was taking part.  We arrived a little late, just as the National Anthem was being sung. The concert was well attended and the orchestra played well although there were a couple a sticky moments – just like the ones we experience at home when we play with ‘The Keynsham Brass Band’. We enjoyed the variety of music – songs, ballets and polkas.

Monday 2nd October 2017

We spent the day with Caroline checking up on some of her many properties and visiting some of the sites of St Petersburg. We visited the bay and Lake Maggiore where we spotted an alligator resting close to the road and another swimming a little way off shore.

After a supper of home-made spaghetti bolognaise we went to listen to ‘TomKats Jazz Orchestra’ who were playing in one of the local bars.  The band has been entertaining Jazz and Swing fans throughout the west coast of Florida for over 30 years. The band is made up of five saxophones, four trombones, four trumpets together with a pianist, drummer, bass guitarist and singer. They were brilliant.  The bar was heaving but we managed to get front seats where we could see the orchestra clearly.  Caroline joined us towards the end of the first set.  A local man encouraged us each in turn to dance with him in a kind of marching way where he just seemed to twist and twirl us around the dance floor.  We were all pleased when the track came to an end although happy that we had the experience.

Tuesday 3rd October 2017

We spent the day sunning ourselves on ‘Sunset Beach’ whilst Caroline worked to prepare one of her condo’s for renting. We sat watching the dolphins go back and forth, the pelicans and the laughing gulls fishing and the few people there were playing in the sea or basking on the beach. After a spot of ‘puzzling’ we decided it was time for a swim.  After some time Julie felt a peculiar stinging sensation on her upper legs and left arm and darted for the safety of the beach thinking she had been stung by a jellyfish or something similar. After some research it appears to have been a ‘hydroid’- colonies of tiny stinging jellies, best described as hundreds of inverted jellyfish attached to a seaweed like base.  It’s a jellyfish in its pupal stage. The stinging sensation and rash disappeared in around 30 minutes.

Late afternoon found us all travelling into Golfport to practice with ‘The New Horizon Band’.  The first hour was for beginners and the following two for the more experienced. Both bands were of a good standard although some of the music was only written in four parts. Jacqui played the baritone, Julie a trumpet and Caroline trombone. We both enjoyed the experience of playing in a different country with a different leader.  He had us adopting three positions in preparation for playing, he called it correct etiquette. 1. Sit up straight when he appeared. 2. Place instrument onto your lap in an upright position as he entered the podium. 3. As he raises his hands ready to conduct we were to take up our playing positions. Maybe this is something The Keynsham Brass Band needs to adopt – it looks really smart.

Wednesday 4th October 2017

We spent the morning preparing for our kayaking trip today and updating the blog.  We loaded up one of the cars with kayaks, tents, sleeping bags, food and drinks and set off at about 1.30pm to pick up one of Caroline’s friends – Lynne Ellis. We launched the kayaks packed full with all our gear at Fort De Soto Park and headed out towards Sawyer Key where we were to kayak through a natural narrow channel through the middle of the mangroves.

We then headed north between ‘Summer Resort Key’ and ‘Sister Key’, across a sand bank where Julie and Lynne had to walk their kayak. This was because the water was so shallow and the kayak they were travelling in much heavier and set deeper in the water. As we crossed into the deeper channel and towards Shell Key the wind whipped up and began creating waves and pushing us about. Eventually, with Caroline already on the sand, Jacqui arrived sideways bumping to Caroline’s kayak and pleased not to have over-run our landing spot. Julie and Lynne arrived with a little more style but only after having gone round in circles for a while.

We sat and assessed our situation for a while. The information from one of Caroline’s other friends was that the wind was not likely to let up any time soon although it would be better later on and in the morning.  So we decided to portage our kayaks around the headland and up towards our camping site.

We pulled the kayaks up onto the sand, unloaded them and settled down for a much-needed beer. Shortly after we headed into ‘The Gulf of Mexico’ for a swim.  After Julie’s experience with tiny stinging jellyfish yesterday she was prepared to give swimming in the sea a second chance, only to experience the same sensation again. With a loud expletive from her everyone evacuated the water and never returned.

It appeared that we might get a rain storm so Caroline set the ball rolling and began to erect her tent.  Unfortunately, the wind was so strong the tent pegs would not hold and the tent repeatedly swung away from it moorings only to be caught and pegged down once again. Julie and Jacqui’s tent was secured a little easier and finally Lynne’s went up.  Eventually the wind died down and we all settled on our chairs for some tea and wine.

As the sun began to set we walked along the beach sharing stories, watching the dolphins, pelicans and gulls as they dipped in and out of the water and enjoying the spectacular sight. Returning to camp, we enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine in the moonlight.

We fell asleep listening to the sound of the waves lapping up onto the sand.

Thursday 5th October 2017

After a fitful and extremely warm night we began to emerge from our tents. Julie and Jacqui got up first, followed by Caroline and finally Lynne appeared bleary-eyed to find the rest of us tucking into a breakfast of yoghurt, hard-boiled eggs and strawberries, all washed down with water or iced coffee.

With the tents down and the kayaks loaded we set off along Shell Key and back over the sandbank, between the islands and over towards the cars. This journey took around 1.5 hours as we were battling against the head wind which made the going tough.  It was just a case of keeping a smooth rhythm with the paddles and some tenacity.  Jacqui ended up with many blisters on her hands from the exertion. The journey was made all the better as we were joined almost the whole way by up to five cormorants who were fishing around us.  We concluded that this was because the movement of the paddles created better fishing conditions for them.  They have an impressive fishing technique – diving and catching fish underwater with powerful propulsion from webbed feet. They would dive and emerge really close to the boats with their beaks grasping a wriggling fish. They would then spend some time fighting with it before gulping it down whole. Beakfulls of water were sometimes required to aid the swallowing process. We could watch as the fish made its sorrowful way down the cormorants neck and into its stomach. At one point one came into contact with Jacqui’s paddle – that’s how close they were swimming to the kayaks. Another had its fish stolen because it was struggling with it for far too long.

Once everything was back in and on top of the cars we headed for home.  We hosed down all our equipment to rid them of salt water, stowed the kayaks back in Caroline’s back garden and changed into some dry clothes. Caroline disappeared as she had some chores to do, so we had some lunch, showered, snoozed and began to prepare for tomorrow, a travel day to Costa Rica. We needed to rearrange the weight in our two cases in an attempt to avoid excessive baggage charges.

Caroline had discovered that there was a free event going on in downtown St Petersburg that included a band and film showing.  We could sit around with some drinks looking out over the bay and watch the sun go down. So this is what we did.  Caroline gathered up some chairs, beers and ciders and we headed out.  The band was a four piece [lead singer/guitarist, double bass, drummer and a mouth-organ]. The film to be shown on the big screen was Mama Mia.  We have seen this film many times before and love it.  It was a fitting end to a wonderful time with Caroline.  We sang and danced our way through it and were also treated to wonderful Creole BBQ food [ribs, pulled port and chicken with a BBQ sauce] which we all shared.

A Great Big THANKYOU Caroline for putting us up and entertaining us over the past four days. We have loved every minute of it.