We needed to find a marina to water the boat and do laundry among other mundane necessities.  We docked at Burnt Store Marina for Feb 4th and 5th.  It is a large marina that has 525 slips for pleasure boats.  It has a decent but smelly restaurant with live music just steps away from our slip.

“Oh what a bird is a pelican.  His bill can hold more than his belly can.”  Actually, a pelican can hold 3 gallons of water in his bill pouch.  They catch fish and then let the water drain out before swallowing them whole.  Brown pelicans are the only pelicans that dive for their prey.  This guy was hanging out on a piling our boat was tied to.

While doing loads of laundry we took a walk down to the dock and discovered several manatees.  I counted 12 of them at one time.  I now have 127 pictures of nostrils.  I will spare you 125 of them.  A local told me to be careful I didn’t get snotted.  They sometimes shoot the water or manatee snot out of their nostrils up to six feet.  I named the granddaddy on the left Barnacle Bill.

We waited for the fog to lift along with John’s mood (due to a stolen credit card number) on Feb 6th before we headed to Boca Grande.  On our way we found out not only was the credit card number with all of our automatic payments tied to it stolen, but also Candis’ email was hacked and our furnace went out at our Minnesota home on Super Bowl Sunday.  Just bumps in the road, or better, waves on the sea.