mvalwayshome

Happy New Year!!  from Fort Myers.  A balmy 64 – 82°F.  Partly sunny. Partly Cloudy.  Just partly beautiful.

We are taking a breather here in at Legacy Harbour marina.    We are planning a trip across Florida via the Okeechobee waterway but we don’t want to go across the lake during the weekend.  Too many crazy boaters out there including us!  We are also waiting for just the right weather window.  Soon!

Before I forget, let me introduce you to our new neighbors:

Spiders web between  the dock and the mangroves

Mangroves?

OR is this a better picture?  That thick foliage along canals and rivers.  So thick you really cannot walk amongst them.  And home to spiders, mosquitos, and other critters!

mangroves along the dock

Did you see the fish?  Look closer……

Fish in the mangrove…sending a hello kiss to you all!

A couple of fish… Really, there are at least 2…

I am sure the color of the water doesn’t help.  I don’t know what kind of fish these guys are but they were a bit skittish.  I tried to catch them like they do on that TV show with catfish tickling.  Dinner was late.  Alas, we had chicken instead.

Boats closest to the river were being swarmed by these little creatures covering their boats.  They look like mosquitos.  They are “Midges”.  They don’t bite or sting.  The boaters were not happy with them because when the die or get killed ( generally with a swatting motion ), they leave a green stain behind.  Just nasty looking.  Several boat owners were trying to wash them away with a hose but no sooner were they swept away, a whole new batch showed up.

Midges

These midges are a new phenomena here at the marina.  “In the past 7 years, they have never been this bad nor stayed this long.  No one knows exactly why.  The bugs are not across the river at Cape Coral.  Nor up the stream.  Nor down the stream.  They are just  here!” an exasperated boat owner was telling me.  I don’t think the spiders are doing their job well enough.  Always Home is located farthest from the river.  Boy are we glad.  We may not have a view like this one below, but we also don’t have midges either.

Another new neighbor that have recently arrived on the river are these birds:

Moon set on the Caloosahatchee River

Yes, that is the moon setting.  Here is an early morning feeder.

Ibis

A member of the neighborhood watch keeping an eye on us!!

There is nothing like a cup of coffee and FOG in the morning!!  We were able to get a place at the end of the dock making our docking experience easy enough.  Quiet night  – we assume since we were so tired we didn’t hear anything for the next 10 hours.   Early to bed and late to rise.  This is a fixed dock so we were wondering how our fancy stairs were going to work out.  At low tide, it flattened into almost a ramp.  At high tide, it was back to being a stair.  Whomever designed this contraption should get a raise.

Fog delayed us getting out of the marina.  It was supposed to lift by 10am.  We figured that was acceptable.  We are in no hurry.  But where to next?

Bahamas?  Tortugas?  That sounds enticing, doesn’t it??  This time we are just heading south.  No grand plan to cross the Atlantic, at least for now.

While at the marina, I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this boat’s name.  For all you boaters out there, this rings true, doesn’t it?!?

Really, the last boat, ever!

As we started out of the marina channel back into the GICW, a flock of white pelicans were swimming along.  You can still see a bit of haze on the water, but the skies looked clear enough.  After all, it was almost 11 am before we left and we figured that the fog would be gone.

A flock of turkey vultures on top of this house.  Homeowners must be thrilled to know their house was chosen to be their roosting spot.

Another scary movie in the making

What happens to weather men when they get their forecasts wrong?  What happens to boaters who believe their forecasts?  Oh dear!!  There still be fog!!  Fog for miles!!

Fog – scary movies are made from

Visibility was pretty bad.  We slowed to idle speed to be safe – aka crawling at 3mph.  A trawler passed us by and we followed it half the day.  They seemed to be more confident about where they were going.  They called us on the radio to let us know they were passing.  Nice folks.  We both were following the “magenta line” and hoped everyone out there in the water world would behave.  Out of the fog came smaller fishing boats and day boats – “go fast boats” is what I call them – running full tilt in and out of our view.  Really?  We can barely see them and yet they are zooming through the mist.  I didn’t get a picture of the fellow on a jet ski that ran along our port side for what seemed like 30 minutes.  We were nervous for him and for us.  I didn’t get a picture of the guy.  I was busy keeping an eye out for the boat in front of us.  He finally stopped and had that bewildered look… where am I and how do I get back to the marina I came from when I can see shine’ola.

By early afternoon, the weather finally improved.  Fog lifted and we were back to running straight and normal.  A beautiful day at sea, sir!!  We were being followed by several pods of dolphins.  I caught this family along our port side.

I also shot a short video…

The dolphins did become a bit of a distraction.  “Go fast boats” trying to pass us by saw the dolphins, slowed down and took pictures.  Our boat will show up on youtube soon.  Or at least the side of the boat.  It is like when a semi-truck starts to pass your car on the highway going 75mph then slows down and paces you for several miles.  It is a distraction.  These smaller boats may go faster than us, but they are a lot smaller and sometimes a bit hard to see when they get too close to us.  It is helpful to have a lookout while the captain is watching the waterway ahead.

Unfortunately, as the weather cleared that meant everyone could go fast.  We had a larger than us trawler come up behind us.  Ok.  Cool.  We will handle their wake when they come around us.  They slowed down to view the dolphins on our starboard side.  They actually got out of the channel and they went over several crab pot buoys.  All of a sudden they changed their minds.  They went forward, turned around, and went back north again at full speed.  We didn’t anticipate this and their wake was pretty bad.  The worst we had ever experienced to date.  We swayed enough to cause trash cans to go flying.  The refrigerator/freezer doors popped open and spilled their contents on the floor.  Yes, we had something on the handle to keep the doors closed, but the wake was enough to pop that off.   Grrrr.  I even found a soda can down in the master stateroom after it had fallen down the galley stairs.  Grrrrr.   The boat owner was maneuvering his 55 footer like it was a smaller 20 ft ‘go fast boat’, showing off and being an inconsiderate jerk.  We have heard about these kinds of boaters. <sigh>  The good news – no broken bottles, no cracked eggs.

Finally, we passed Green buoy marked 0 – zero – the beginning of the GICW.  Or for us, the end of the GICW and the beginning of the Caloosahatchie River inlet into the Okeechobee Waterway!!

Green buoy – 0 – GICW

Being a holiday week, there are lots and lots of boaters out on the water.  Lots of beautiful homes and condos on the water’s edge.  If you look really hard, I am sure you can call the number on the realty sign and buy this 1/2 acre prime lot.  errr prime island with their own private dock.  It is supposed to be a commercial location!!

Island for sale

OR just float your commercial enterprise and not worry about the island.  Bait!!

We finally arrived at our marina for the next several days.  Whew!!  Wayne docked our 16 foot wide boat in a 18 foot wide slip!!  I was concentrating on throwing the lines to dock hands and getting fenders over the side to really pay attention to the details.  When Always Home was tied off and we could take a breath, our boating neighbor came out to say “hello” and put out more large fenders off the side of his boat.  It looks like we have plenty of room between boats, right?

But, at this angle, not so much.  I told the neighbor he had a wonderful idea!!  Can’t have enough bumpers to protect our homes, can we?

1 foot clearance between boats!!

I am so impressed with Wayne’s docking skills!!  He shoe-horned us into this tight slip like a master.  Must be all that superb training he got!!

Night view from our slip.

Time for a glass of wine, dinner, and rest!

Day 2 – 42 nautical miles

Today we have begun our Loop. We had a terrific stay at Marina Jacks in Sarasota, FL and are heading south.  We want to thank the staff for their help, smiles, and friendly waves during our stay.

There are so many things to do when we left our slip at Marina Jacks that I was too busy to get pictures. I needed to get the fenders in, lines bundled, and watch for markers so we can get out of the marina channel and into the Gulf ICW.

We decided to travel the more protected waters of the Gulf ICW.  This is a picture of our chart plotter.  We are the boat.  The 8.2 in the upper left corner means we are traveling at 8.2 knots or 9.4 mph.  Can you feel the wind blowing your hair back? between your ears?  The thin white line is the boat channel that we are following.  If you look closely, you can see a magenta line.  That is the middle of the channel that everyone follows. It should be the deepest part of the channel.  On either side of the white line are blues and yellows.

The blue color is water, of course.  You can see that numbers in the blue area are the charted water depth.  Our boat’s draft is 4.5 feet.  If we strayed out of the white line, where the water is 4.3 feet deep, we would hit bottom.  Not a good thing.  Thus, we need to follow carefully when we are in “the big ditch” as some people call it.  The ICW.  Do you see that 1 near land.  1 foot of water.  Maybe a skiff or dinghy can travel in those waters.  We certainly cannot.

The yellow is land.  We are heading south.  On the left side is LAND or Florida coast line.  On the right side looks like islands. Thus the protected waters of the ICW.  On the far right, you will see a lot of white.  The numbers of 15 and 21 are very enticing.  Right?  Lots of depth.  However, that is the Gulf of Mexico. Deep water. Choppy waters. We will stay in the protected waters, for now, thank you.

Along the way, we went under several bridges.  Our boat height is just under 19 feet.  If the bridge is taller than that, we do not need the bridge to open.  There are signs next to the bridges to let us know the bridge clearance.  This one shows over 28 feet of water with an extra 3 feet at the center.  Obviously, there is plenty of room for our boat to slowly go under.

We had to request three openings our first day.  One was the Albee bridge that opens in the middle.  We went through without any problems.  In our excitement to start our trip, I forgot to take a picture of the bridge while it was ahead.  Here it is closing after we went through.

Our first swing bridge was the Blackburn Swing Bridge being only 9 feet off the water.  The bridge operator must walk to the middle of the bridge to open it.  It pivots in the middle and swings open.

Beginning to open

Almost fully open

There are many slow speed minimal wake and manatee zones along our way south. This means we go from a blistering 8 knots to something like 3 knots.  Many gorgeous homes along the waterway.  If you had a home along the waterway, you wouldn’t want folks zoom past your house and miss all the splendor that it is.

Beautiful house with purple retaining wall

The weather was beautiful.  This week is a holiday week.  Lots of boaters on the water.  More fishermen than we expected.  Half throwing nets.  Half using fishing poles.

Fishermen throwing nets

Kayaks… if you have more than one kayak is it called a crowd?  A bunch?  a School?  These guys could easily travel in that 1 foot water.  Water looks a bit wavy. Maybe our wake?

Sites along the way…

White Pelicans roosting

Where’d the captain go?  Birds waiting for their ride.

Venice water tower

One of the many attractions in Venice is a walk path / bike path that parallels the ICW.  We saw plenty of people taking advantage of the good weather.  It does look odd when a jogger passes you by, though.

Mural along the water way in Venice

First days are always the hardest.  Anxiety. Excitement. Fear.  Joy.  We went 38 nautical miles today.  Doesn’t look far except that at the average of 5 mph, it took all day.  We were very happy to pull into Gasparilla Marina in Placida, FL for the night.

See you on Day 2!!