We were finally leaving Sarasota, Florida and the Anna Maria Island area where Sea Clef had been for over a month! We did a water fill and a self-pumpout and then we were away from the dock at around 8:45 AM. We love the ability to do a pump out at our slip for free. Most of Florida has free black water tank pump outs, with many of those in your slip, in order to discourage people from polluting the inland waterways by doing overboard discharges. Sadly, it is still a problem.
We had fairly calm travel, with respect to both traffic and water conditions. We saw a lot of beautiful large homes all along the waterways. One of our first sights along the way was a Ringling Circus train car. It was one of the historic sleeper cars and is now a tourist attraction. We thought it might have been rougher when we crossed the inlet at Venice, but it was completely flat! From Venice, we entered a man-made channel or ditch. It was newer and more attractive than the man-made canals in the Florida Panhandle. The waters were wide and open in the Gasparilla Sound but the chop was only about a half foot and the opening to the Gulf looked beautiful! Finally, we arrived and anchored in Pelican Bay, after about a 6.75 hour run. It was a perfect travel day!
We recognized Selah Way, Endeavor, and Stay Cool in the anchorage. Tim from Endeavor came over in his dinghy to collect a package that we had picked up for them at Marina Jack in Sarasota. We learned that Cayo Costa National Park was closed with "No Trespassing" signs up. That was disappointing as we had planned to hike the trails there. Stay Cool managed to talk to someone working on the island who told them that it would likely be July before they were cleaned up from the damage caused by Hurricane Ian. So sad!
We enjoyed a dinghy ride around the anchorage instead and realized we hadn't gone on a pleasure ride on the dinghy since we were in Carrabelle, Florida in early December. We read that there were Manatees in the Mangroves around the island. We looked for them but they did not come to entertain. We ended up at Endeavor with Stay Cool for docktails and then Selah Way dropped by. Apparently, they had never met Endeavor or Stay Cool before. We were glad they joined us and we were able to toast their Platinum Loop. We really enjoyed ourselves and felt like we were getting back into the swing of Looping. Much of our docktail discussions settled around routes and anchorages.
Later back on Sea Clef, we settled in for gourmet rice and pork chops and reviewed our plans. You may recall that we had only recently changed our plans since we were no longer going to the Keys. Our new plan was to head toward Fort Myers where we would meet friends who would join us for the crossing of the Okeechobee Waterway. These were the same friends that were going to make the run to the Florida Keys with us. We were glad that they were able to be flexible.
We had a lazy start to our day, waiting for the tide to come in so we could move safely in the anchorage without touching bottom. We took the time to fire up our water-maker to make drinking water from salt water and it worked great! This was an important test in our preparations for heading to the Bahamas where making water would be a part of our strategy in water management. We had planned to stay another day at Pelican Bay, but we didn't like the winds in the morning so we decided to move to a more sheltered anchorage to take a bite out of our travels the next day. Sometimes I don't even know why we make plans! We were going to stop along the way at Cabbage Key for lunch - specifically for a Cheeseburger in Paradise - at the restaurant that inspired Jimmy Buffet to write the song of the same name. Unfortunately, they didn't have room for us. They had a barge putting in pilings as they were literally finishing their repairs from Hurricane Ian that very day. They would be done in an hour and then they would have room for us. We were not prepared to hover for an hour so we decided to move along. We were sorry that we hadn't remained anchored at Pelican Bay and taken the dinghy over to Cabbage Key. I guess hind sight is 20/20, as they say.
Next, we planned to anchor in Ding Darling in San Carlos Bay and thought that Endeavor had planned to go there too. We let them know we were coming and they told us they had actually chosen a different anchorage in San Carlos Bay further south on their route to the Keys so that was out of the way for us. Since we couldn't connect with Endeavor and it was such a nice day, we opted to take the opportunity to cross the opening between Sanibel Island and Cape Coral and head for an anchorage called Glover Bight. We realized that crossing was what people refer to as the Miserable Mile. It's called that because the current from the tide can be very strong and can push you out of the channel. We hardly noticed and the only miserable part was how much traffic there was. Anyway, this was literally our fourth change in plans that day, but all of our plan changes worked out for the better.
Glover Bight looked lovely, despite the large yacht that was deposited on shore by Hurricane Ian. We got a good hold with our anchor and we had a very nice breeze to air condition the boat. We enjoyed a lovely evening with just the two of us and we made our own Cheeseburgers in Paradise. We couldn't get the idea or the song out of our heads.
We had a very peaceful night except for the constant droning of the generators for the yacht on shore that was being salvaged. Heather got up and did a workout and Cam mopped the dew off the boat. We took our time as Sweetwater Marina in Fort Myers didn't want us to arrive until after 12 noon. It really chopped up before we left so we were very glad that we did the Miserable Mile the day before!
We saw more damage from Hurricane Ian that day, especially when we went past Legacy Harbor, which was decimated! It was unsettling to see the kind of damage that can be done by a hurricane. We saw a lot of recovery operations along this stretch. There were two boats under tow, one boat recently refloated that was in a side-along tow, and one boat carrying away dead mangroves intertwined with debris. The Coast Guard was busy installing temporary buoys, and labelling newly installed buoys. There was various other damage that had yet to be cleaned up or repaired and it will be years before they are fully recovered. It was disheartening seeing so many partially submerged boats with many others on shore in disrepair. The Sweetwater Marina was in good shape, from what we could see, and it seemed to be in an area with lots of mangroves around for protection, although the boat tied up behind us was in pretty bad shape with destroyed canvas, and lots of rub rail damage.
We enjoyed quite a treat shortly after arriving at the marina that afternoon. Our long time boat buddies' daughter is a dog breeder and she brought her four week old puppies to meet us. It was their first social visit outside of their home. Their mom came along and she was very attentive to the activities around her puppies. There were only two dogs in the litter, both male, and she gave them the litter names of Chip and Dale. We really enjoyed our cuddle time with them and getting to know Alison.
Friday was cleaning and laundry day as we prepared for our friends Catherine and Kirk to join us. They arrived around 2 PM and treated us to a nice lunch at the Boathouse Tiki Bar. Then we provisioned for three to four days of travel on the Okeechobee Waterway. We were all still feeling pretty full from lunch, but we finally nibbled on some chicken and carrots for a very light dinner before some game time with Rummikub. Before we called it a night, we briefed Catherine and Kirk on the travel and lock procedures for the next day. Life on a boat can be complicated!
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