November 28, 2014  Sarasota, FL  45 – 62°F   Water temp 64°F

Today started cold.  The day turned into cloudless blue sunny skies.  Perfect day in Florida!  Since we are visiting we might be called transients, snowbirds, or just crazy!

Let’s go back a couple of days and let me tell you why I wanted to get off.

We had a cold front come through.  Yep, like most areas around the country we had high winds.  This time, however, our winds came from the south.  Pretty strong winds for us anyway.   Gusts up to 30 mph.  Wind and water splashing at our bow for almost 2 days.

Here is a an aerial view of Sarasota Bay.

Sarasota Bay

As we zoom in:  The southern winds pushed the bay water up into the land.  The waves were reported to be 4 – 7 feet.  We were seeing white caps coming toward us.

We are at the top of this picture.

There are a line of boats between us and this larger body of water.  We watched the large boats heave up and down.  The waves crashing on their sides and splashing up on the dock.  Extra lines were put out to make sure these 75 – 100 foot boats didn’t break free and wander on their own.

Marina Jack – we are currently berthed on the left side

The dock is a concrete floating dock.  There are concrete pilings or posts.  The dock sections roll up and down the pilings as tides and waves come into the marina.  Pretty interesting.  Hearing the rollers squeal as they moved up and down just added to the whole experience.

Floating dock rollers

All the boats were moving at a different rhythm based on their buoyancy.  The smaller the boat, the more it bounced up and down with the waves.

I don’t know if this video will work on your device.  I took a few seconds to show the boats floating around us.  Off in the distance I zoomed in on the little pleasure craft.  It was really bouncing about!

Our boat was moving up and down, back and forth stretching the lines.  After a bit, I decided I had enough of all the motion.  I was drinking ginger ale so I didn’t get seasick. I  wanted to stop all the movement!  Give my eyes and semicircular canals a rest.   I looked down the concrete dock and saw it moving in sections.  Boats moving.  Dock moving.  Oh dear.  I went up to the Marina office figuring it was land but I could still feel movement.  Maybe it was my imagination.  I ended up going to the parking lot.  Surely, where there are cars there has to be land.  Real land.  Non-moving land.  I looked away from the marina at buildings hoping they were not moving.  It took me several minutes to stop swaying.