12 Years and still venturing south...

12 Years and still venturing south...

(This is a re-post of our last blog using a new host and website, allowing us to manage country IP addresses. It will require a new subscription if you want to get the blog. Sign up at www.shoalsailer32.com)

1. Year 12 sailing south to the Keys in spring and back to our dock for hurricane season.

This year we have not published a blog until now. We have visited a lot of the same venues and our adventures are similar to those we've experienced in the past. Mostly, we delayed publishing because we were looking for a new blog host. We have seen in our statistics that most of our traffic was coming from China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. We could not believe there is that much interest in us, the Florida Keys and Maine in those places. It made us nervous about security and hackers and our long-time host will not allow blocking country IP addresses. Now we are on a different host site and we hope we can keep the blog among the people who are interested in reading about our adventures.

So here's a summary of our twelfth year cruising down to the Keys for a little over a month this spring. 

We were delayed by weather from our planned departure in early April. Our original plan was to leave home with plenty of time to get to Dunedin, stay a couple days, and make a presentation to the Dunedin Boat Club thoughtfully arranged by our friend Zeke and his wife, Elizabeth. But, due to our delayed departure, we traveled by car instead of sailing. The program was very well received as "the best they've had in years!" And, we sold a few books. Thank you to Zeke and the Dunedin Boat Club!

When the weather window finally opened we chose to hop down the coast to Big Grass Island (near Keaton Beach), Steinhatchee, Cedar Key, and Anclote Key. We don't like the 30+ hour overnight, 150 nm trip from our home port to Clearwater, so we traded four uncomfortable days for one miserable, cold, and taxing direct route. The last day of the northern Gulf passage we couldn't make a marina in Tarpon Springs in time so we chose to anchor overnight off Anclote Key.

From there, we stopped at Gulfport for a couple of days, mostly to have the generator looked at. While traveling east and south, the weather was lovely, even a bit chilly. So sleeping without a generator (and air conditioning) was pleasant. But, we knew as we went farther down the coast, the weather would get warmer (hot) so we chose to stay in an area where a qualified technician could look at the generator. Marvin had looked at it, jiggled a couple wires figuring it was a heat sensor malfunction, but didn't fix it. A technician came, jiggled some wires (the same ones Marvin jiggled only maybe a little harder) and 20 minutes and many "boat bucks" later, it worked!

Once we crossed Tampa Bay, we headed to Sarasota where we enjoyed catching up with good friends, Pat and Judy and Linda and Mike. Our demeanor improved with the fellowship and hospitality at Marina Jack in downtown Sarasota. We enjoyed a trip to a local park, Celery Fields, with Pat and Judy where Lee recorded 15 species in 15 minutes to eBird..

When we are cruising, it seems the wind is always on the nose so we did a lot of motoring as we headed south in the Intracoastal Waterway. After a couple of days, we arrived at Snook Bight Marina in Ft. Myers Beach. This was a favored stopping point in the early days of our cruising because the marina shares a parking lot with Publix. It's a top-rated marina, with many amenities including 2 restaurants on property. Years ago we met our friends Terry and Suzanne who were live-aboards here.

But, in September 2022, Hurricane Ian hit Ft. Myers Beach and surrounding areas hard, destroying many homes and businesses. We were pleased to see that Snook Bight was back up and running, providing its excellent level of service, albeit without fuel and a pump-out. But they're working on it! We were treated like royalty as one of few transients visiting their facility since the hurricane. 

From Ft. Myers Beach we took the shallow inside passage in San Carlos Bay to the bridge leading outside to the Gulf of Mexico. We've done this many times before and about halfway there we realized the bridge may have been destroyed by Ian. It was a bit of scramble to call a number shown on the Navionics app. Fortunately it was a weekday and we reached the Lee County DOT. The receptionist said to approach the bridge and someone will see us and come and manually open the bridge. Well, it was worth a try. If not successful, we could retrace our steps and go out the way we came, into Matanzas Pass. No one at the bridge was answering the hail on the VHF but the bridge had a phone number posted (all bridges do.) We reached the bridge tender by phone. He walked from the Ft. Myers Beach side of the bridge out to the middle and manually opened the bridge for us. Next stop was Gordon Pass, the entrance to Naples. Of course, we had to motor because the wind was coming from the direction we were going!

From Gordon Pass, we took the inside route past Marco Island to Goodland. Again, this is a shallow area, behind Keewaydin Island, in Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. Not many sailboats can take that route, but our Shoalsailer was made for the occasional 4.5-foot readings on the depth sounder.

Eventually, we made it to one of our favorite places, the Ten Thousand Islands. The bugs at Shark River did not disappoint; they were there in full force to welcome us. But, with our generator running, we could close up the boat, run the A/C, and sleep peacefully without the annoying buzz of biting mosquitos in our ears.

After a great crossing of Florida Bay to Marathon, with our sails up, we were able to rendezvous with Linda and Michael, the wonderful owners of Zydeco, a sistership to Bay Breeze. Only 16 of these special custom-order boats were built by Shannon Yachts. The key attribute is the wide beam for comfortable accommodations and a shallow draft of 30", making cruising skinny waters of the Keys, Bahamas, and Apalachee Bay possible.

While in the Keys we were able to meet up with Steve and Edie, a former Shoalsailer owner, and friends Jonathan and Anne. Last summer, we were delighted to host all four of them on our powerboat, AQUAVIT, in Maine. And, here in Marathon, we were treated to their special hospitality, sharing many meals, tales of the sea, and good times between the 8 of us. 

We took advantage of being "nearby" and drove a rental car to Key West to connect with the bookstores that are selling Marvin's novels. Reports are that a couple of them have sold so I signed a few copies, restocking their supply and adding the more recently published titles to their inventory. Thank you Books and Book Key West and Island Bookstore of Key West!

Serendipity happened and we joined long-time friend Todd and Marie for breakfast at the 7-mile Bridge. As it turns out, they were anchored off Marathon on the Atlantic side, on their return cruise from the Bahamas, while we were at Faro Blanco Marina on the Florida Bay side of the island. It was good to catch up with them and swap stories. 

We chased Zydeco around the Bay side of the Keys for a couple days, celebrating happy hour and dinner aboard each other's boats. 

Green Flash or not?  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kribUjEm_BI

When it was time to head north, we cruised up to Turkey Key to meet up with Zydeco again in a much less buggy anchorage than the usual stop at Shark River. Still, we are so glad to have a generator and air conditioning to lock out the bugs. (I don't know how Thompson dealt with the insect infestation in Marvin's book, Houseboat Hermit of the Everglades. But, then, that story is fiction,)

We hung out in the Ten Thousand Islands and visited Pavilion Key. We took our dinghy to the island to go beachcombing where we found lots of horse conch shells and helped return stranded horseshoe crabs to the ocean. It looked like it was mating season. We discovered a mysterious ruin on the key - a cistern or foundation made of shell aggregate cement.  Maybe this will spark another writing foray?

Now it was time to turn our sights northward and start the process of heading home. On the way home we will take a few more days to stop and enjoy. Staying overnight in Goodland, we were sorry not to connect with our friend and talented folksinger Marie. Maybe next year we'll catch her performance and share some time together. 

We returned to Snook Bight Marina for a week-long stay, partly because we like the place and partly because the weather was getting rainy. For nearly 3 weeks we have been enjoying rain-free, beautiful weather in southwest Florida. 

While in Ft. Myers Beach we enjoyed lunch with awesome retired Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge manager Paul and lovely wife Rachel at one of the restaurants at the marina. 

We were delighted to learn that Doc Ford's, an excellent restaurant near the Matanzas Pass bridge, was open for business after destruction by Ian. That gave us an excuse to take a 5-mile round trip dinghy ride to test our new Torqeedo electric motor and see how far we could go on a battery charge. (It looks like we can go 5 miles, maybe a little more.)

On our way back north we enjoyed anchoring in Pelican Bay at Cayo Costa State Park, which is still recovering from Hurricane Ian. Only the gulf beach is open. But the wildlife doesn't seem to mind. From our anchorage, we could see frigatebirds, osprey, hear northern cardinals and prairie warblers singing, and watch tarpon, manatees, and dolphins. Marvin even caught a sea trout (that we released.)

Birds! Sometimes we look for wildlife. Sometimes wildlife visits us.

Now, courtesy of Pat and Judy's membership at Useppa Island Club, we are at the exclusive members-only resort. The place is first class and it too is recovering from the hurricane of ~18 months ago. It is heartening to see the vegetation coming back and the damaged infrastructure being repaired.  

From here we go to Sarasota, on our way to St. Petersburg for maintenance at Sailors Wharf. We're sad to learn the boatyard has been sold for development of more waterfront high-rise condos. This yard was the best we've found in Florida and a place we've trusted to deposit our excess funds. Now we will need to find another dependable source for bottom paint and maintenance since our home port area is a marine-services desert. We are considering hauling Bay Breeze to store in Bradenton until December when we can resume cruising earlier in 2025. We would avoid the long tiring passage from St. Petersburg to our home dock only to turn around in a few months to make the same passage back. 

We appreciate your taking the time to read our blog. We now have a new website address and host. (It was a little unnerving to see how many hits we were getting on our blog from places so far away.) We hope you'll sign up as a subscriber to share in our adventures on the high seas.

Happy sails 'til we meet again!

Marvin and Lee

05.18.2024 

It's not all sunshine and sunsets!

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