After a peaceful night and a leisurely morning we departed for St. Pete Beach and another anchorage. We took a detour just after we started out for a stop at the Clearwater City Marina so that we could top off our fuel tanks. I never would have thought that we’d be buying diesel fuel for $2.03 per gallon when we left home but we did in Clearwater. Last summer we paid $4.45 a gallon. The difference equates to a 54 percent reduction in price and that’s what I’d call a good deal.

Resuming our 27 mile trip to St. Pete Beach we encountered a problem. When we approached the Corey Causeway Bridge to request an opening we received no response and I knew the radio worked as I had just done a radio check with Tow Boat U.S. and I was loud and clear to them. We actually had to drop our anchor because we did not know when or even if someone would show up. It was frustrating because in the middle of our wait after calling for an opening we would see a person in the bridge house and he would not answer our radio call and then he disappeared again. Forty minutes later the person finally responded and the bridge opened and we were once again on our way.

This was a good stop for us since we had read in one of the guides that you could dinghy a short distance to shore to a little shopping center just behind those condos. Lisa went to the grocery store and drug store there while I took the bus to a Post Office a couple miles away.