www.venetian.org

By the way gang, St. Joe will be having their Venetian Festival July 17-20 (Thursday thru Sunday). They have a ton of food booths, 3 sound/entertainment stages (they fly in well known entertainment), carnival rides, fireworks, boat parade, all held right on the St. Joseph River and Silver Beach (south pier). Great boating and family event.

Use the DNR lauch on Riverview Drive and the farthest two ramps out, tilt your drives up a bit, easy does it until you get away from the boat launch, stay within marker boeys/follow the boat traffic.

We plan on being there.

Mark you gettin big yellow wet?

Yeah, I got it all preped. You sittin' this year out again?

Will be there all weekend. Slip 27 at Hrbor Isle, if you wanna stop by. Other wise look for the all white Baja 280.

There is also a great fireworks display saturday nite.

Also if you go onto the island the ramps are much eaiser to use. $5.00 to launch and park and much easier to get around. The road is called Anchors Way and the launch is behind Brians Marina.

Peir 33 quoted me $300 for a week that weekend, and they still had slips.

I think Loverboy is the big act this year.

The nice thing about the DNR launch ramp off of Riverview Drive is that there is not much of any current to deal with over there...but a little shallow in some spots---that's why we use the last stall/ramp along the seawall---it's the farthest ramp away from the little DNR check-in booth.

How is the current and depth over there at the city island ramps this year?

A guy I know is going to be at Venetian in a 36' Skater with some really BIG power in it....says it does 180mph---either way my boat is no match. Anyway, it should be a good time.

There is more current at the island. I have not had any problems with depth at all. I have been boating the river so long I just don't have any problems with the current. The only place I have hit bottom this year is right infront of the docks there just west of the DNR launch. The river is really shallow this year.

The biggest advantage for the island launch for me is the ramp is not as steep, and it's a ton easier to get around in. With the DNR launch packed for Venition getting around in it is a pain. My trailer is 36' long and the parking is much easier there.

Can't wait for this year. Seams to be more performance boats out than I have seen in along time. If you get a chance stop by and say hi. We will be anchored off Silver Beach just south of the peir all weekend, or at the slip.

Got to St. Joe at about 6:45pm Friday....looked like a lot of rain clouds. I still launched my boat for the first time this year. Saw what looked like a 30' boat (don't know the make) that had tripple outboards on it. Any of you guys on here?

Still rained on Saturday until about 4pm or so. Only took the boat out for a quick spin....nobody else out there. The weather cleared nicely until dark!

Sunday, thought it was going to clear up and sun came out at first light, BUT it clouded right back up again and threatened rain. Met with some friends during the weekend and still had a decent time. I got tired of waiting and hanging around all weekend waiting for the weather to clear so, I hit the road for home around 11:30am as I headed north for home the weather began to break a little.....at least as I headed north.

By the time I arrived home it looked decent out, but still did not know how it was or ended up weather wise down in St. Joe.

Saw the same boat... we were in the white/red checkmate that you passed a few times in the channel. Waved to you in fron tof clementines on saturday... boat sounds nice, what are you running?

Thanks,...naturally aspirated 565cid's, Stellings full length tube headers. They have a pretty nice/smooth idle. We turned around in front of Barney's Boathouse/Pier 33 fuel dock...I am not familiar with the river's shallow spots much past that point.

When I passed you, were you slipped in a dock or did we idle by each other? The sun began to peek out a bit as we came down the Morrison Channel. There seemed to be a lot of people down that stretch of boats moored along the river from the bridge to Clementine's. Looked to be a few grills fired up and lots of socializing. I think people were determined to make a nice weekend of it despite the unstable weather.

KAAMA

Saw you headed down the river saturday evening as it started to clear up. We went back out a bit latter for the fireworks (that we could not see do to the fog). Sunday started out overcast but cleared up nicely around 4:30, about the time we pulled the boat out.

We went out on friday with the kids, and met teamsynergy. Was nice for a while then started to look like it might get nasty. We are considering changing the name of our boat to rain maker because every time we put it in the water it rains.