Cruising the ICW

We departed Fort Myers area the day after Greg's sister Denise left, headed north again.  Our first stop was Pelican Bay, where we had spent a night when Denise was with us.  We continued to be plagued by every boaters nemesis, strong winds.  Fortunately the wind was out of the South for the trip, so following seas and not taking a lot of spray, as we had 20+ knots.  Pelican Bay is relatively protected, for this area, and the wind dropped to 10 knots overnight so we had a pleasant night. Getting out of the winds in Pine Island Sound was a priority so we headed north into the more protected waters of the Gulf IntraCoastal Waterway (GICW) towards Venice.  This was a relatively short run, of only a couple of hours, and we had dolphins with us much of the way.  We took a diversion on the way into Boca Grande so see what it offered, and came across a beautiful old yacht, We spent the next 3 nights at Venice Yacht Club, as the wind continued to blow.  ...

From our last report in Marco Island, we did spend one more night in the area, on the hook in Smokehouse Bay, in the heart of the Island.  This is a very protected spot about 15 minutes in from the main channel.  We dinghied to the marina to visit the bar for happy hour, and in the morning dinghied to the local grocery store, which provides a dinghy dock for boaters.  What a service!  We continued north for a very easy run of only 20 miles in protected inside passages to Naples.  Our friends in Naples provided a contact for us at the Naples Sailing and Yacht Club to enable us to stay for a couple of nights.  Beautiful club, and very well located.  The heart of old Naples was just a few minutes bike ride away.  We got a chance to give our new bikes a real workout with a ride to the beach area, and an area called Port Royal, which is littered with $50M homes on the beach.  Naples is one of the wealthiest areas of Florida (hard ...

Well we ended up spending 10 days in the Marco Island area.  No big issues.  Just enjoyed it.  Greg arrived on his own from the Keys, and anchored in Smokehouse Bay the first night, then moved the boat to Marco Island Marina to await Judy and Tristan's arrival.  Unfortunately, Tristan's flight was cancelled due to weather issues in Charlotte.  Judy overnighted in a comfy hotel in Miami on her own, while Tristan slept on the bench in the airport.  Tristan arrived in Miami Friday and they drove to Marco Island arriving mid-day. Saturday we drove to Everglades City, about 20 miles south, to partake in their seafood festival, and take an everglades air-boat tour. What a hoot that was, ripping thru the everglades at up to 50 mph.  One of the cool things about the tour operator we used is that they provided communication headsets.  Not only did it surpress the sound from the engine, but we could talk about things we saw.  One of the things w...

Our month in Key West went by much more quickly than anticipated. Certainly helped by the variety of things to do and see, and visits from family.  This song captures the vibe perfectly.    (Howard Livingston and Mile Marker 24 band) Judy's sister Wendy's visit unfortunately coincided with the poorest 3 days of weather we had in January.  Although generally dry, it was unseasonably cool and seasonably windy.  That didn't stop Judy and Wendy from getting out and seeing things though.  After all, Wendy was there to celebrate a significant milestone birthday.  Hemingway house, the butterfly museum, some shopping of course, and we even managed to get a dinghy trip out to Sunset Key during a calmer afternoon.  The highlight though was the evening at the local cabaret headlining a female impersonator act who features Bette Midler, Cher and a (third character).  He/she was fantastic and we all had great fun. Tristan's visit followed sh...

Well, we're really not wasting away, but since we are docked less than a 100 yards from Jimmy Buffett's recording studio, I thought we should recognize his contribution to Key West culture.  In fact, I think we have done a fair bit in our now two weeks here, which have gone very quickly. The area was very nicely but unusually lit for Xmas with nautical and tropical themes but the lights have come down this week. Our (my) general routine has been to work on minor maintenance projects in the morning, and do fun stuff in the afternoon.  So what have we done?  As I think I commented on in the last post, the weather turned very nice just before we arrived here, and we have been enjoying mostly sunny days of 25 to 27, but still some breeze.  Makes for very pleasant temperatures walking as much as we do.  We run the A/C on the boat some nights as it does stay warm and humid, but the last few nights we have not had to.  Visited the USCG In...

We departed Lighthouse Point January 29 under still windy conditions with an intermediate destination of Fort Lauderdale, only 2 hours south (but 6 bridges) for two reasons.   First, Tristan's girlfriend Dom was joining us on the boat for a couple of days, and we wanted to give it another day for the wind to drop, which was forecast.  Friends of hers also joined us for the day trip to FLL. Second, and more important, was that we were stopping there to see a hockey game that night, Montreal Canadiens at Florida Panthers. The games are played in Sunrise, on the west side of the city.  Tristan still had his rental car so the 4 of us made use of that, and dropped the car at the airport on the way home, and then Uber. The following day we headed south, thru Miami, and another 14 bridges, fortunately only 8 of which needed to open for us.  The wind had indeed finally dropped which made for a good trip for the 30 mile run down to a city marina in Coral G...

When we last reported in we were in Cocoa Village, near Cape Canaveral and the weather was cool and windy, and I commented on how variable it was.  Well, it has continued to be variable, with a bias to poor, with a lot of wind. Note the wind in the palms in the adjacent pic. We departed Cocoa under lighter winds, but continuing out of the north for a 50 mile run down to Vero Beach.   We hung out on a mooring buoy in the Municipal marina for the night, under a surprisingly pleasant evening.   Enhanced by the local Power Squadron having a Xmas party very close by, with a band playing great music, that we were able to dance to on our upper deck.   Unfortunately, the location was also no-see-um (Ceratopogonidae) central, which left Judy with about 75 bites.    Given the progress we had made over the last week, we could slow our travels to arrive in South Florida for Xmas, and the forecast for the next few days was good to stop and enjoy the weather, s...