Cruising the ICW

Since our last blog post, we spent two additional days in Marathon since the wind was still blowing. The Marlin Bay marina is a great spot to hang out for added time.   Greg developed a sore back for no known reason, and fortunately there was a massage therapist working at the club on our last day.  The combination of the massage and some time in the hot tub was ideal to allow us to get underway.  We got away from Marathon Tuesday in somewhat lighter wind conditions.  Although it was blowing from the SE and our route would supposedly be in the lee of the Keys chain, the shallow water dictates that one has to stick to the designated channel, which is still a number of miles from land and lots of fetch to pick up some wave action.   Progressing along the route there are some small keys and sand banks that provide a bit of reprieve from the waves, but the boat still got pretty salty by the time we got to Elliott Key, at the south end of Biscayne Bay. This...

We are back in the Keys, after a 3 day trek from our last post, and of course awaiting weather (wind) again.  We departed the lovely little marina south of Venice just after sun up and moved to a nearby fuel dock with the cheapest fuel available on the Gulf Coast.  Good thing, as we took on a lot!   After 45 minutes fueling, we were underway by 0830 for the run south to Naples.  This is a 70 mile run total, down Pine Island Sound and then into open water at Fort Myers Beach for 25 miles to Gordon Pass, into Naples.  The weather was generally good, with calm conditions in the protected waters and a 10-15 NW wind blowing from behind making for a reasonably comfortable trip in the open area.  We enjoyed a very quiet night at the Naples Yacht Club. We got underway early the next day for the 70 mile run to Little Shark River, all offshore with again 10-15 NW wind behind us.  We anchored for the night, after 3 attempts in different locations to get the ...

We spent a quiet week in Fort Myers.  The cold front that brought strong winds and cool temps, as forecast, developed and we were glad we holed up there for the week.  However, Fort Myers doesn't offer a lot to do or see.  There is the Edison Ford Estate, which is well worth seeing, but we had seen it two years ago.  We rode our bikes one day into a very nice residential area and around an historic church.  We used the pool as it warmed up later in the week, and we did almost daily trips to the close-by Publix grocery store, for something to do.  Greg couldn't even make much progress with any varnishing tasks as it was too windy.  But we managed to occupy the week, with great neighbors and got underway at the end of the week, in a bit of fog, which burned off early.   Our trip up Pine Island Sound was very nice and we anchored in the late afternoon in Pelican Bay at Cayo Costa state park.  Greg swam, as it was a good opportunity to surve...

We extended our stay in Key West for 3 days, due to wind of course.  The final 3 days were fun though.  We did have to move to a different dock location and it was nice to give us a slightly different perspective on the harbour.   I also got a chance to launch the dinghy to test the steering repair in the water. And we had manatees visit very close to the boat.  We departed Saturday, Feb 5th with a spectacular travel day to cross Florida Bay, which is really the south-east extension of the Gulf of Mexico.  The run to Marco Island is about 85 miles and a longer day than we like to put in, so we chose to anchor overnight in Little Shark River which is about half-way, but does add miles to the overall trip. We arrived late afternoon and were the 5th boat to anchor in the entrance but with lots of room.  What I didn't realize is that we were anchoring at pretty much low slack, but put out more than 100' of chain in 12' deep water.  After dark, once th...

Yeah, regular readers will know that we used that title before but it is so apropos given Jimmy Buffett's contribution to the music culture here, and spending another month here.  This time we did have a more low key visit given this is our third time here, and we have seen many of the sights.  Our month got off to a great start with VERY warm weather and Tristan with us for the first week.  Unfortunately the bank said he couldn't work from the US for an extended period and he amended his plans to head home at the end of the week. We did enjoy Happy Hour at a favourite outdoor waterfront place one day with him, and a great guitar player at a favourite outdoor bar, Hanks Hair of the Dog Saloon a couple of nights.  Tristan's girlfriend Dom arrived for the weekend and toured Key West to show her some of the sights as she had not been here before.  One of the highlights was visiting the Key West Butterfly museum.  It is a lush tropical environment with about 15...