Off cruising again!! (Posted April 27, 2011)

It has been almost 2 1/2 months since my last posting.  Guess I'm getting lazy and laid back!! :-)

Since the last posting in February, we spent another month and a half in Boot Key Harbor in the Keys.  We helped some friends, Cheri and Michael on "Believe", build the set for the play they wrote and directed at the Community Theater (the play was called "Act Now!"), attended the "Press Night" performance of their play (a dress rehersal with an audience), attended a birthday party for Lew on "Free N Clear", attended a birthday party for Lee on "About Time" which was held at a movie theater with a W.C. Fields and Mae West movie, bussed tables at the Seafood Fest for the Relay for Life team, and worked to get the boat ready to leave and go cruising again.  A bit of a fiasco with the motor when the mechanic I took it too to be serviced "broke" it instead and another mechanic took 2 weeks to fix what the first one broke!!! :-(

We had spent WAY too much time in Boot Key Harbor over the past five winters, including 7 months this past year, so we have become a bit bored with it and irritated with some of the marina's policies and one of the staff members.  The good thing about living on a boat is that if you are bored with one place or don't like your neighbors you can just up anchor and go someplace else!  So we have decided that next winter, instead of returning to the Keys, we will just keep cruising around and try out some other places on the west coast of Florida.  This summer we will be spending time in and around the Tampa/Clearwater/Bradenton area and then move back south for the winter to the Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Pine Island Sound area where there are many more sailing and anchoring options than there were in the Keys.

Before we left Boot Key Harbor we "left our mark" by painting a sign for the sign post at the tiki hut at the marina. Here is a photo:

We finally had everything ready to go and we left Boot Key Harbor and the Keys on March 25th and sailed up to Little Shark River in the Everglades.  Had a great sail and we were thrilled to be on the move again after way too long in the harbor.  Boats are made to sail, not sit in a harbor.  It is way too easy to get lazy and just become a harbor rat and not leave the nice safe comfortable harbor.  To live life you have to untie the mooring lines and sail away.  After a night in the Little Shark River we sailed north up the west coast of Florida, spent a few days anchored in Indian Key Pass near Everglades City and then on up to Goodland and on to Marco Island.  We anchored in Smokehouse Bay, an upscale area in upscale Marco Island.  One evening we could hear the band playing the Esplanade, an expensive luxury condo and shopping mall and they were playing our kind of music (60's and 70's music!).  Sooo...we quickly got dressed up (meaning nicer shorts and a collared shirt ). We jumped in the dinghy and went ashore to go dancing!!

After a few days in Marco Island we sailed up the coast to Cape Coral.  We anchored in Glover's Bight for a night and filled up with gasoline and water. Then we went to what is probably the best anchorage of the more than 100 anchorages we have stayed in.  It is called Bimini Basin in Cape Coral and it is up a series of canals so it is totally protected from storms and waves, a beautiful round cove surrounded by condos with a nice park that has a dock for our dinghy when we go ashore.  Everything we could need is within walking distance such as supermarkets, banks, West Marine, hardware stores, laundromat, restaurants, ice cream shop, etc.  And there is a great county bus system that will take you to Super Walmart and any other store you can think of.  We will probably spend a good bit of the winter months back down here in Bimini Basin and other anchorages after our summer of cruising further north.

While we were in Bimini Basin we saw a friend, Harve on "Camelot", who had been in Boot Key Harbor for the winter.  And one of my former co-workers and friend and his wife, Roger and Silvia who live in North Fort Myers now, came to get us and we all went to a very nice waterfront restaurant for lunch.

We sailed back down to Fort Myers Beach on April 8th so that we could leave the boat on a mooring in the harbor while we took a trip to Connecticut.  There were several boats in the harbor that we knew from Boot Key Harbor so there was an improptu get together for "Happy Hour" drinks at a restaurant with a dinghy dock. We met some new people too.

On April 15th, we flew up to Connecticut for a 10 day visit with Amy, Mark, Olivia and Laura.  The next day we all took a bus trip down to New York City to visit the American Museum of Natural History.  A great trip.  Mega-dinosaur skeletons!!  The girls had a ball as did the adults!!

Here is a photo of the girls in front of the T-Rex dinosaur:

We had a great time with them, played lots of games (Laura is addicted to Monopoly and all other games and VERY competitive!!).  There was a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt for the kids and Olivia found the special "golden egg".  We, of course, did some shopping with Amy and the girls and took them to a movie.  On Easter morning the girls did a "treasure hunt" that the Easter Bunny had set up, finding eggs with puzzles and clues to decode to find the next egg and finally the hidden Easter baskets.  Jerry and Kathy, Mark's parents, came for Easter dinner and we all had a great visit.

Here is Olivia helping Laura de-code one of the clues for the treasure hunt on Easter morning:

On April 25th, we returned to Florida.  Ahhh....sunshine, palm trees and warm temperatures again!   We will spend another week here in Fort Myers Beach and then resume our cruise north up the west coast.  Hopefullly, I will be able to update the blog next time without waiting 2 1/2 months to do it! :-)