The next morning, January 8, 2026, we travelled 13 miles or so to Venice, Florida. This was bridge day. Lots of bridges – some we fit under, some we barely fit under (that’s always fun), and one low swing bridge where we had to request an opening. George was at the helm and Chris spent a good part of the day working on our auto pilot problem, the one that has plagued us since we bought the boat. The most recent Garmin technical rep suggested that we update software on all Garmin instruments, as well as our Volvo Penta displays. The software updates were going great … until they weren’t. They left George without any data at the helm, including no location or depth information. He was incredibly gracious about it, and we were both thankful that he was at the helm instead of Chris when all instruments went dark. Eventually the software updates were complete, and our instruments came back online. All was forgiven when George discovered that the software updates fixed our auto pilot functionality issues!!!

After arriving at the Venice Yacht Club, we biked through historic Venice and then out to the beaches. The sand was considerably courser and grayer than the beaches to the north. We were unsuccessful in finding any shark’s teeth, which is what these beaches are famous for, so we consoled ourselves with a beer and some gouda nachos at a beachside restaurant, Sharky’s on the Pier. On the bike ride home, George detoured to another beach for sunset photos. (See it in the video linked below).

After a morning of business and meetings, we left Venice Yacht Club just before lunch and headed south to an anchorage at Don Pedro Island State Park. More bridges, but no need to request any openings since George temporarily removed the anemometer (wind indicator) from the top off our mast to get our air draft down a smidge. If you are a motor boater and are asking yourself either “What the heck is an anemometer?” or “Why in the world would someone have an anemometer on a motorboat?” then I can explain that we added an anemometer (a wind data instrument) to Assisted Living because we (and by “we”, I mean George) has not fully reconciled ourselves to the fact that we are no longer a sailboat.

As soon as we made it to Don Pedro Island StatePark, we dropped the dinghy in the water and set out to explore a mangrove channel. It was more of a tunnel. With the current pushing us, we came head-to-head (literally) with several mangrove trees, and in each instance, the tree won. Somehow, we made it through to a clear opening we recognized from a previous “George-cursion.” We have a lovely video of our Don Pedro mangrove excursion for your enjoyment (because it was not enough for Chris to be the tip of the spear on the bow of the dinghy battling the mangrove branches, George also wanted her to video with the Go Pro while doing so). Fortunately, the return trip through the mangroves going against the current was much more pleasant, so we decided to continue to the beach. From a previous trip, we recalled an open channel around the mangroves and under a bridge that would take you to a ranger station and dinghy dock that was only a short walk over to the beach. We found the open channel and were surprised to see that the bridge was absolutely wrecked from hurricane damage, but there was a small water path through the opening the bridge had once spanned. The former docks were likewise destroyed and the ranger station gone, but we were able to pull the dinghy onto shore and made a quick visit to the beach. We returned to the boat in a happy mood for happy hour and sunset. We hope you will enjoy George’s video of highlights of Venice through Don Pedro Island State Park.