The first lighthouses on the list that I thought we could see were around the Tampa/St Pete harbor. Since we had already seen Boca Grande on a previous trip









Including the Rear Range Light



.. and since some of the lighthouses that I originally thought I might be able to see were on islands which (based on the Cape Charles experience) might really be out of camera range, and since we also had time constraints - we had only 2 days to get all the way up the Florida coast, I decided to go up the east side and try to see the lighthouse/ranges of Port Manatee.



I could see this on the map, but some of what I read made me think we would have trouble getting in to the port. And we did. We got to the port and I went in to where all the truck drivers were waiting and they asked me if I had some kind of Federal Permit that allowed me to go onto the port, and of course I did not. The man I was talking to took pity on me and showed me the map which had them on it and gave me the 2011 Official Directory.



This was actually really interesting - I didn't realize that the closest location to ship stuff to the Panama Canal was this port.