Ho-hum

Tuesday 4/5 dawned another glorious morning, cool with steady breezes, clear blue skies and temperatures in the high 70’s.  This is how we would start our trip up the west coast of Florida - fantastic.  We bid farewell to the community at Boot Key Harbor on Marathon Key, which turned out to be a great experience despite our concerns about being moored in the city marina along with 250 other boats.  It is very large protected harbor that the city has taken control of and installed 250 mooring balls, provided access to the city park with tennis courts, ball fields, even Bocce courts.  However, the sense of community and civility among the rather libertarian cruising population in the Florida Keys, is encouraged by providing access to a large activities room the size of a basketball court, filled with books, puzzles, tables for dominoes and bridge, and free WiFi.   Here, people with like interests can meet to pursue them comfortably.  The beauty of this communion is the morning Cruisers Net that broadcasts each morning on the VHF radio with announcements of gatherings, activities in the city, sharing of information, and even a Mariners swap of equipment, toys or excess supplies.  So, for example, we had some concerns about one of the belts on our engine squealing since we had run aground.  We asked for advice from the listeners on the Net and it led to a visit from “Diesel Don” a free lance mechanic who lives in the harbor and makes “boat calls”.  We also learned of a monthly lunch with the members of the Seven Seas Cruising Association, a group that we belong to in Annapolis.  So we ventured out to lunch and met some of the other cruisers staying in the harbor.  We were very luck to meet a couple from St Petersburg, Fl., Jane and Paul, two delightful people who took a lot of time to share with us their favorite cruising spots on the west coast.  They also gave us a lot of just good information about the cruising life, the Bahamas and long term life on a boat.

So we said goodbye to new friends, and actually to warmer weather and set out of the harbor, turning north towards the Florida Everglades.  As we crossed the Bay of Florida and entered the Gulf of Mexico, we actually had a chance to get our sails up for awhile and remember why we own a sailboat.  Both the bay and Gulf are very large but shallow bodies of water, but with attention to the depths and a wind from the east, we had a great day.  We finally arrived at the Little Shark River, known for its natural beauty, fishing and mosquitoes.  We found an anchorage in a cove near the entrance of the river with 4 other boats and after 2-3 attempts finally set our anchor and put on the anchor alarm.  We were a little anxious about the set of our anchor because we were in a spot in the cove where the current curved around the bend, and the wind was blowing in the opposite direction.  This resulted in our rotating clockwise around the anchor for the next two hours, at a rate of a complete rotation in 10 minutes, while all the other boats were still, pointing in the direction that the current flowed.  They were probably worried about our competence as sailors and the integrity of our anchoring.  However, our anchor seemed secure and our alarm was silent.  We experienced a drop dead gorgeous sunset before the mosquitoes chased us into the cabin behind our screens and we woke in the morning sitting quietly in harmony with the other boats.

Dusk in the Everglades

Sunset on the Shark River

Our departure from the Shark River lead us further northward along the Florida coast, past what is known as the Ten Thousand Islands, toward Marco Island.  At this point, if you are interested, I would recommend that you might read a good book that gives you a perspective on the development of Florida; A Land Remembered by Patrick Smith.  It is entertaining as well as informative.  Hopefully, like the blog…  Anyway, our passage through the Gulf of Mexico was some of the most rigorous we have done.  While the morning started with calm seas, the “fetch” (the distance traveled by wind or waves across open water) off Cape Romano was building until the waves were 4 feet plus with a period of only 3-4 seconds.  We had to bring down the sails as the wind shifted to our stern and was pushing the boat more than it was filling the sails.  This pushed us ahead of the waves and made it very difficult to hold the boat on course.  So, with the sails down we could control our speed and ride a little more with the waves, although it was very choppy ride for about 3 hours until we reached the more protected waters north of the cape where the coast line reduced the ability of the waves to build into larger sizes. 

 

Marco Island is actually the largest of the Ten Thousands.  It has a large, calm anchorage which we appreciated after our tense afternoon, surrounded by Tiki Bars, seafood restaurants and Mangrove islands.  Clearly this is a community that caters to boaters and retirees.  As we left Marco we decided not to go back into the Gulf where the winds had not changed much.  So we set out for Naples via what the locals call the “back river”, also known as the western Intercoastal Waterway.  What a delightful trip.  For the entire 3 hours we were surrounded by mangrove islands, water fowl and dolphins.  At one point there was a dolphin swimming with the boat right between the two front pontoons for about a mile.  Eventually this opened up into Naples Bay, revealing homes that rivaled anything that the east coast of Florida could offer. 

 

Osprey on the back rivers

 

The beautiful beaches at Naples

 

A character at the Naples farmers market

We stayed in Naples for 3 days.  Bob’s brother and wife – Brian and Ellen met us there in their Nordic Tug 37.  They were finishing up the last of the Great Loop, a cruising route that takes you around the entire eastern half of the U.S. , up the Hudson, across the Erie canal and great lakes, down the Mississippi, across the Gulf of Mexico and then back up the east coast.  We spent the time getting to know the area and found it very convivial.  We had been told that Naples had horrible traffic, but we were unaffected, walking and biking everywhere, the beach, the grocery store, post office and ice cream shop.  We even found a pizza place that delivered to the docks!  We made new friends in the marina, when Cece stopped to admire their 50 foot power catamaran and shared the cruising ritual of “docktails” with them for the next few evenings.

 

So now onto Fort Meyers.  We have pretty stiff winds at 10-15 mph and the seas will be just 1 foot, so we should have a great run out in the Gulf.

 

April Fools

It’s April 1^st and we have now been cruising nearly 6 months.  Our plans and destinations have change nearly as frequently as the direction of the wind.  However there seems to be a particular joy in having the freedom to alter course at any minute or drive resolutely onto a preordained destination. 

This morning we are sitting in Boot Key Harbor enjoying our 4^th week of 70-85 degree weather with breezes that range from gentle to gale force.  This harbor is created by the structures of Marathon Key and Boot Key.  Marathon is a cruisers delight as evidenced by the fact that we are sharing this harbor with at least 250 boats, 80% sailors. Many have been here since January seeking refuge from the northern winters, and some call this their year round home as they live a lifestyle that they feel is less encumbered than the average.  This assemblage has managed to create a “community” despite the comings and goings.  Every morning there is a cruisers net radio broadcast on VHF 68 where the community discuss who is coming and going, who needs help with anything boat or non-boat related, and activities going on in the area (i.e. there is a community theater, a community garden, etc).  There are many families with small children (less than 10 years old, maybe home schooling gets harder after age 10).  Additionally the local community supports this floating community by the facilities they provide at the city marina such as tennis courts, an activity room complete with TVs and WiFi, and a large work room where you can work on your mechanical or non-mechanical projects.  The project room is full of “McIver’s”, if you remember that TV show from the late 70’s where the hero always got out of trouble by jerry rigging solutions from whatever he happened to have with him.

But, we want to bring you up to date on our recent activities:

We left Tavernier, Key Largo, on Easter Monday and sailed what is called the “inside”, north of the keys in the Florida Bay.  Here the waters are shallow but calmer then out in the ocean and you are surrounded by random islands of mangroves.  Eventually we crossed under the “Channel 5” bridge and entered Hawks Channel, which is formed by a long coral reef that runs along the edge of the keys and the coast of the islands in the near Atlantic Ocean.  This was our first entry ever to sailing in the ocean.  We found it choppy (1 to 2 foot seas) but really no worse than a choppy day in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.  This glorious day was marred only by the fact that we ran aground trying to enter a little cove called Curry Hammock State Park (a hammock is a particular arrangement of hardwood trees as the canopy with smaller tropical brush and then mangroves at the water’s edge).  We could not back   Second Wind off the shoal, so we called our tow boat insurance company who dispatched a rescue boat.  But before the rescue arrived, a friendly fisherman with a boat full of children (about 6) gave us a tow and pulled us free.  So we continued on into the cove very cautiously, no longer trusting our charts or our instruments, but believing only what we saw with our own eyes.  Our perseverance was rewarded as we entered the cove you would dream about if you thought about what the Caribbean could offer.  It was totally surrounded by Mangroves with a little white beach and an old deserted resort the only interruption to the wall of green.  The water was clean and still, yet there was a gentle breeze that was sufficient to cool.  We snorkeled, swam and paddleboarded till dusk and again in the morning.  In the morning we woke to yet another stunning day, weather wise, and we found the ocean even calmer then the day before.  So we made our way into Boot Key Harbor to temporarily join this cruising community.  We arrived into the harbor through Sisters Creek Inlet, past a beautiful beach, through the mangroves, and into a large cove with hundreds of boats moored and at anchor.  The size and number of moored boats being greater than anything we’ve seen so far on the water.  We’ll call this home for a week.