The theme, and only unifying factor, being Florida’s south west coast – we went from one extreme, Marco Island, to the other, Everglades National Park.
Marco Island
What could I possibly show you that sets Marco Island apart from so many of the other Florida Gulf Coast cities? Most sport many, many large, multi-windowed condo buildings, set in manicured parks, with gated entries, strung along busy roadways. So here is Tigertail Beach and a perspective that puts the best of Marco in the forefront.
Valet parking for your boat! And this is live storage; if you want to take your boat out, just call ahead!We left before sun up to try and get ahead of the wind and waves forecasted for late afternoon.
Everglades National Park
One and a half MILLION acres of South Florida wetlands… a gem of a National Park! We had to take, and pass, a test to get permission to visit as well as get a permit to boat in the park. Explore this virtually yourself at: https://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/index.htmWe were one of only two boats in Ponce de Leon Bay sheltering from a strong south wind and steep waves.The wind had not abated so we decided to stay put another day and explore The Little Shark River by dinghy. You could easily get lost here without charts and/or a compass… all of the mangrove channels look alike after a while!
Like many of the other National Parks, you can “hike” (paddle) and camp in sections of the park. That was the cleanest port-potty I have EVER had the need to visit!🤣
The mangroves doing their important job of creating new land.A last, breath-taking view of Florida’s West Coast over the park.
A happy ending to our story will be that no one else has to make the mistake we did. On Monday this week, we received word that NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the data source for the navigational charts boaters use in this section of the country, has agreed to correct the power line charted height. They will mark only the section over the GICW channel and remove the 95ft marking on all other sections.
The chart as it currently stands; the green and aqua blue line with the small red channel markers identify the GICW channel (IWW referenced below).After numerous emails, and with some persistence, confirmation that the chart data will be updated.
Distance is a wonderful thing: making distance on a journey like this one means you accomplish something simply by moving from one place to another, distance from an event provides the ability to tell it as a story with a beginning and an end. This is the story of our “shocking experience”…
On Saturday, February 5th, we ran into the power line which stretches across Pine Island Sound between Sanibel and Pine Islands. We had gone out for an afternoon sail to Chino Island (track 1), had lunch and were on our way back to Pine Island (track 2) when we hit the line (*3).
These are a couple of pictures of what a 39 kV strike can do to solid metal… how it magically melts and fuses metal. Most people helping us afterwards likened this to a lightening strike. The working theory is that we hit the power line with the top of the forestay, the current traveled down the furling extrusion, jumped to the anchor and from there into the water.
The damage was extensive: we damaged the forestay (the metal wire which holds up the mast in the front) and the genoa furler (the device that holds the large front sail) beyond repair, blew out all of the marine electronics and the marine network (chart plotter, radio, depth gauge, wind gauge, auto pilot, radar), multiple fuse panels, the propane safety switch, the shore power galvanic isolator and the control board for the diesel heater.
This litany of destruction does not, though, outweigh the gratitude we feel for how VERY lucky we were: there were six passengers on board that day and no one was hurt, the boat did not catch fire and we did not sustain any hull damage which could have resulted in a sinking. It is a strange but true statement to say that we are REALLY glad it was only these “things”…
Additional causalities of the event were the disrupted vacation plans of two sets of guests: Dave & Wendy didn’t get to sail after the 5th and Tom & Heike spent the first of their two weeks on land. (Another thing we are extremely thankful for – Peg & Den who were so kind as to let us stay in their condo when we could not stay on the boat).
Complicating the situation, the ability to get replacement parts and contractors to do the work was challenging. The original marina we contacted to have the boat pulled for the safety and insurance inspection said the earliest we could come was two weeks away. And that was not even to begin repairs! We finally found a yard, accessible only at high tide, through a tiny, manual lock, buried deep in the suburbs of Port Charlotte. This is a shot of Aurora on her first arduous journey to Safe Cove (highlighted by Island Girl’s location).
Christian spent a long week lining up inspections, ordering parts, hiring contractors for the few things he was not going to tackle himself, and dealing with the insurance company. Parts were mostly 10 days out so we left Safe Cove to try and salvage what we could of Tom & Heike’s vacation. We would return on the 25th for the start of the REAL work.
Looping in Pine Island Sound
One of a number of early morning visitors on the dock at Ft Myers Beach.We wondered why this fisherman was working so hard to bring in his catch… and then decided we didn’t want to go swimming at Gasparilla any more. The shoals on the south end of Cayo Costa.Manatees are camera shy so this is as good as it gets in pictures.The perpetual human ritual of drinking to the sunset and hoping for a green flash on Captiva.
The anchorage at Punta Blanca
The man with the rosy-colored glasses who never gives in to despair. I so admire that in him…Bounty from the Farmer’s Market on Captiva.The best ending to Tom & Heike’s vacation; we had been searching everywhere we went for alligators and saw none. The morning they were leaving, this guy is just laying in the water off our starboard stern, waiting to have his picture taken.🇺🇦 This is all such a first world problem in the big picture…
Back to Work
Transiting the lock at high tide, with the mosquitos, on our way back to Safe Cove. Why is high tide ALWAYS in the middle of the night???While not a marina, Safe Cove is now one of my favorite places on the Loop. Aurora was rescued here…The cart is filled with all of the stuff that Christian needed to re-install. He worked 10+ hour days for a solid week to get everything replaced and operational.We went back into the water, whole again, on Thursday March 3rd. I cannot convey how amazing that timeframe is, how quickly we recovered… A beautiful sight… on our way to Marco Island, where we are now.
I will start by apologizing for the length of time between posts this year but it seems each week brings a new adventure… this even as we are on this great adventure! The journey down the GICW (Gulf Intercostal Waterway) from Tarpon Springs to Pine Island Sound was a tour of Florida’s palatial waterfront estates and the sky high condos everyone else lives in. Once we arrived in Pine Island Sound, the pristine barrier islands and nature preserves took over.
Standard for this story, right? The adventure part is all that happened along the way… a visit to Boston for some baby tourism (good adventure), no engine cooling water in Longboat Key (bad adventure), an imploded impeller in Sarasota Bay (bad adventure) and, in the words of our friend Dave, a shocking experience (bad adventure) returning from a leisure afternoon sail and picnic lunch with guests on board (good adventure). There will be more to this story but for now, let’s just enjoy the scenery…
The waterfront in St PetersburgLook where the Provincetown ferry spends the winter!St Petersburg hosts the Dali Museum. Spectacular!A snapshot of the Skyway Bridge over Tampa BayBradenton or Clearwater… hard to tell the FL west coast towns apart from the water.Everyone wants to live here.Art imitating life…The closer we got to Pine Island Sound, the closer housing got to the ground.😜
Cayo Costa and Pelican Bay
Pelican Bay is a perfect anchorage, protected in almost all winds and provides easy access to Cayo Costa State Park. The state park has small cabins & tent sites, beautiful trails, great shelling beaches and 🍦!
Oh, yes, and wildlife and stunning sun rises and sets!
We made the BIG jump from Carabelle to Tarpon Springs on Thursday this past week; 26 straight hours of travel, 23 of it without sight of land (not simply because it was dark, either 🤣). Before that journey, though, we stocked up on “land” by anchoring out 8 days in a row along Florida’s “Forgotten Coast”. The Chamber of Commerce bestowed this nickname as this section of coast did not enjoy (hmmm?) the development which has occurred along the east and west coasts of the state. It was swampy, wild and easy to imagine this is what all of Florida looked like in the past.
We have had Christmas with no snow in Boston, certainly, but Christmas without the piney smell of the tree, big meals with friends & family and presents was, well, strange. Not to say that we suffered; we were in a spectacular anchorage for Christmas and shared a delicious fresh fish dinner with our boat neighbors for New Year’s Eve. We even managed to stay up ’till 2022. Here’s hoping that 2022 is everyone’s best year EVER and we see you all soon.🥂
Our Christmas tree from the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum!
Christmas Day was beautiful – warm, sunny, the slightest of breezes. We took the dinghy to Gulf State Park and rode our bikes for hours along the lake, through the forest to the pier and beach.
We must have been good this year because we got the best presents after our Christmas dinner…
We left Wolf Bay on the 26th and set anchor behind our second barrier island – Santa Rosa. White sand so soft and water so clear you could imagine you were in the Bahamas… And all that sky provided for another amazing Gulf sunset…
We moved into a Pensacola marina for the New Year. The weather was deteriorating and we needed to do real life stuff like grocery shopping, laundry…
Mobile, AL was where we found our mast and once again went through the process of stepping it with the help of the crew at Turner Marine.
Mobile, AL from Mobile Bay. The city is a serious working port for shipping, fishing and the oil industry.A commercial shrimper… grace on the water.The Mobile Bay lighthouse, decidedly LESS graceful.Grace is not the word to describe how he moves but I also don’t want to fool with him…
Mast Stepping
1. Find your mast and stays2. Figure out how this puzzle will go back together.3. Call in the experts.4. Load the mast onto the crane. (Please note the black tie attire of the crane operator – 1st class service)5. Move the mast, ever so carefully, to the boat with the crane.6. Find the naked boat.7. Attach stays, lines and, eventually, add sails.8. Relax after two long 10 hour plus days…
NOLA was supposed to be our last “tourist destination” before heading to Mobile for the mast stepping appointment. Well, turns out it was not; we forgot to inform the weather gods of our plans…
It started out with a benign anchorage at Cat Island, the first of many barrier islands we will visit on the Gulf Coast.
Day 2 should have brought us to Dauphine Island… instead, we wound up in…
… where we would spend 2 days exploring the neighborhood. And eating ice cream for dessert each night. Our marina was next to the Golden Nugget Casino and who knew that casinos had more goodies than just the slot machines (those were annoying; the ice cream was delicious)!🤣
The Hurricane Katrina Memorial
The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art. Also a perfect picture of why we are in Biloxi…
This is one of the current exhibits: a radio station which broadcasts the weather… as sounds. It was weird.
Hee Joo Yang’s ‘The Caves’
Bradley Sabin’s ‘Botanica”
Can’t credit the artist but I liked the colors and the scale…🙃
Carlos Estévez’ ‘Palimpsest/Rewritings
As we were running a day behind for the mast stepping, we decided to try and make at least half the distance to Mobile. Definitely NOT one of our better traveling days… every cracker on board was reduced to crumbs.
The Lower Mississippi was so worth it to arrive here!
The levees that protect New Orleans from the canals, the river and Lake Pontchartrain. Ummm???One of the many large pumping stations required because those levees are not that high!In addition to the Domino refinery, Folgers coffee has a huge processing plant on the industrial waterfront. The Folgers plant is MUCH more presentable…😬You have most likely seen the Garden Districts iconic facades but many of NOLA’s neighborhoods have interesting architecture in their own right.
You gotta love a city with a sense of humor…
Jackson Square in the French Quarter. Bourbon St, the river front, street music and ice cream drinks – everything is easily accessible from here.
The Christmas lights in City Park (Celebration in the Oaks), 2.25 miles and over 1 million lights!
Humor and good food…
No one (practically) is buried, everyone is interred in these beautiful cemeteries.
Yum, Beignets! Even if the sugar came from that Domino plant…😋😋😋
