Welcome: Glad you made it safely & the boat looks great. (You must've washed the bugs off before you took the pics in that driveway..)
Wx-wise you have a tad unusual but benign pattern.
The unusual part is the position of the Atlantic Hi, funneling in W to SW winds; This is different, most of the time the Bermuda Hi gives us E to NE to SE morning winds w/ afternoon onshore seabreezes. Another aspect of this type pattern is the possibility of morning showers/tstms coming in off the Gulf, but I'm betting they will not be hard to miss if they occur at all.
The cold fronts wash out near the Panhandle in the summer months; the gradient is not tight since there are no Lows or Troughs near us at the moment, so you should have winds 10kts or less thru the middle, maybe the end, of the week. That will keep the Gulf manageable with seas generally less than 2 feet. If you happen to have a persistent West wind for the balance of a day, the chop will build over the passing hours, but conditions & comfort should still be at least ok. If you run offshore to fish for whatever, you should have a following sea all the way back in.
As the Saharan Dust layer moves on out, (look at the sky next time you go outside to your Seafarer...it's kind of a pastel color with haze mixed in) atmospheric moisture will likely increase, upping the precip chances late week. Even then, isolated to scattered tstms will be the rule along the seabreeze collision boundaries, wherever they set up. If the afternoon seabreezes are enhanced by the West winds, the collision boundary with the Atlantic seabreeze will be more inland, keeping the storms East of I-75 for the most part. If the Gulf seabreeze is not that strong, they may drift back toward the coast once the atmosphere gets loaded up later in the week. (Just watch the sky; if one of the cells has extra MoJo, it can be unpleasant at best and dangerous at worst.)
I was out day before yesterday and the water color is great. In our area, the freshwater outflow turns the adjacent Gulf waters brown, or tannic, but that hasn't happened here yet. Sarasota and the surrounding area will not experience that anyway. Vis close in is 6-7 feet on my sounder near the passes where the tidal flow cleanses the water.
My apologies, I didn't get to the sand islands at Big Sarasota Pass, so I can't say if they are exposed or not. Still, the shallow water will give you a neat sandbar day if you want one. The channel to the Pass is marked and is a short run off the ICW. You pick it up just South of Marina Jack and it's deep water all the way to the sand islands before you enter the Gulf. Again, I believe you can anchor near or West of Green # 13.
Remember, be wary of navigating Sarasota Pass, New Pass and Longboat Pass. They are subject to continual shoaling due to tidal currents & storms. I believe Sarasota Yacht Club still has the latest navigation info regarding Sarasota Pass on their website. The pass has floating ATON's and the personnel move them as the sand shifts around.
Enjoy.
Wx-wise you have a tad unusual but benign pattern.
The unusual part is the position of the Atlantic Hi, funneling in W to SW winds; This is different, most of the time the Bermuda Hi gives us E to NE to SE morning winds w/ afternoon onshore seabreezes. Another aspect of this type pattern is the possibility of morning showers/tstms coming in off the Gulf, but I'm betting they will not be hard to miss if they occur at all.
The cold fronts wash out near the Panhandle in the summer months; the gradient is not tight since there are no Lows or Troughs near us at the moment, so you should have winds 10kts or less thru the middle, maybe the end, of the week. That will keep the Gulf manageable with seas generally less than 2 feet. If you happen to have a persistent West wind for the balance of a day, the chop will build over the passing hours, but conditions & comfort should still be at least ok. If you run offshore to fish for whatever, you should have a following sea all the way back in.
As the Saharan Dust layer moves on out, (look at the sky next time you go outside to your Seafarer...it's kind of a pastel color with haze mixed in) atmospheric moisture will likely increase, upping the precip chances late week. Even then, isolated to scattered tstms will be the rule along the seabreeze collision boundaries, wherever they set up. If the afternoon seabreezes are enhanced by the West winds, the collision boundary with the Atlantic seabreeze will be more inland, keeping the storms East of I-75 for the most part. If the Gulf seabreeze is not that strong, they may drift back toward the coast once the atmosphere gets loaded up later in the week. (Just watch the sky; if one of the cells has extra MoJo, it can be unpleasant at best and dangerous at worst.)
I was out day before yesterday and the water color is great. In our area, the freshwater outflow turns the adjacent Gulf waters brown, or tannic, but that hasn't happened here yet. Sarasota and the surrounding area will not experience that anyway. Vis close in is 6-7 feet on my sounder near the passes where the tidal flow cleanses the water.
My apologies, I didn't get to the sand islands at Big Sarasota Pass, so I can't say if they are exposed or not. Still, the shallow water will give you a neat sandbar day if you want one. The channel to the Pass is marked and is a short run off the ICW. You pick it up just South of Marina Jack and it's deep water all the way to the sand islands before you enter the Gulf. Again, I believe you can anchor near or West of Green # 13.
Remember, be wary of navigating Sarasota Pass, New Pass and Longboat Pass. They are subject to continual shoaling due to tidal currents & storms. I believe Sarasota Yacht Club still has the latest navigation info regarding Sarasota Pass on their website. The pass has floating ATON's and the personnel move them as the sand shifts around.
Enjoy.
