My cousin's Aunt, Jan, and her husband Tom live on Little Gasparilla Island. It's just northwest of Charlotte Harbor, and is only accessible by water...no cars, roads, anything. I called them and arranged to spend the night at their dock. The trip down was absolutely beautiful...one of the neatest ICW stretchs I've ever been on, although I've been doing mostly gulf sails anyway. Just out of Venice I went through my first Bascule Bridge. It was pretty neat...you call the bridge tender and he opens it when you get close. I went through 4 bridges altogether...there are quite a lot on this side of the coast.

After stopping off at Fish Tales Marina to get gas and a burger, I made my way on down to Little Gasparilla. Jan met me out at marker '23' and I followed her through a bunch of quite shallow areas to get to their dock. I scraped bottom pretty good a few times and had to crank the keel all the way up, but other than that I made it through fine. Her house is one of the coolest places I've ever been. It is 3 levels...they live on the top level, and then the middle level is like a guest apartment. They were awesome enough to let me stay the night there...the first land-based bed I've slept on in a while! I was able to rest up some in the air conditioning, and then the party began. You see...one of the great things about people around here is that it takes practically no excuse at all to have a celebration! It's always an adventure. Dinner guests totaled 8, and Tom cooked a great baked snook meal. Believe it or not, I actually ate a spinach dish, and tomato basil mozerella. I even went for seconds on the spinach! I was amazed. It was really good though. I really enjoyed the company and all...it was a lot of fun.