Across the lake

December 1

It’s been two weeks, almost 3 since I’ve last posted. Not sure why I find it super challenging to be motivated to write. And it’s December already!!! Today is a blustery day - high around 60° - so it’s a perfect day to write. Picture the sound of the saw in the background while Eddie is cutting a hole in the floor to access the fuel tanks. More on that later!

After leaving Indiantown, hallelujah!, we crossed Lake Okeechobee from east to west. This involved traveling through three locks and an overnight stay. The lake was so calm and reminded me a little bit of traveling in the Chesapeake Bay. There would be days on the Chesapeake where we would refer to it as Lake Chesapeake because it was so calm. All messages were that Lake O can get super sloppy. It’s a large shallow lake with a wide fetch which means there is ample opportunity for waves to build. Oh and they say it’s an unforgiving bottom which means you really don’t want to ground. There had been so much rain in S. Florida in the prior weeks that the Lake was unseasonably high and we never saw depths even close to being too shallow for us. We had a lovely cruise. Seeing as this was our first days back on the water since the spring calm seas were very welcome.

Our first leg of the journey was Indiantown to Moore Haven. At Moore Haven we spent the night at the RiverHouse Marina. Teeny little town which we walked around, took a ride on the swings and just stretched our legs. 

We were side tied next to a lovely boat. I needed more info and so we befriended what turned out to be the delivery captain.

Goddess out of Newport Rhode Island is 1947 58’ Consolidated motorcruiser, with A LOT of mahogany. The captain told us that Goddess was originally owned by the Rockefeller’s and used as a commuter boat into NYC. Don’t know if it’s true but do like the story.

Not a good day for this Captain :(

Our next night, following transit through the Franklin lock we anchored out. We were in a small basin, next to a tiny RV Campground. It was relaxing and peaceful and we had boat admirers from the RV park. That’s always fun! We took our kayaks down and paddled a bit and otherwise just relaxed. Turns out we had overestimated the time to get to Ft. Myers and we could have made it before dark that day. Having no schedule is great and it didn’t really matter that we spent the night on anchor near the Franklin lock. And we had a beautiful morning. 

Seaquel sitting pretty in the anchorage with the RV park next to us. 

Sunset at Franklin Lock anchorage

Our view for morning coffee. Looks like we are some place exotic but it’s really just the house on the other side of the anchorage. 

Remember our fuel problems last winter in the Bahamas? Yup, we are still having them. We first encountered them as we left our slip in Indiantown. Ugh! I suggested we side tie at the fuel dock and that’s what we did. Eddie was able to get us running on the fuel primer pump and off we went. Let’s just say that fuel primer pump saved us again. But, we continue to struggle with the issues all the way to Ft. Myers and even after being in Ft. Myers. Seemed no matter what changes Eddie made we couldn’t run for any period of time on the port engine without restriction in the fuel line. We would lose the port engine, he would run down below, get it back up and running with the primer pump and we would keep going. Finally - he used compressed air to blow out lines and replaced some of the original copper fuel lines with modern A1 type fuel hose and we have been running great since then. However, the water in the fuel still exists. We are slated to head into Port Charlotte in the coming weeks for professional fuel polishing - think dialysis for diesel. Only thing is ... can’t access all the tanks thus new holes in the floor. Fingers crossed that this solves the problems. 

Meanwhile we stayed in Ft. Myers for a couple of weeks. We picked a little cove off the beaten path, in Hancock creek, totally protected from wind and waves. If you looked in one direction off our boat it was beautiful. However, if you looked in the other direction you saw a a very sad neglected trawler. It hurt my heart to see how much love it needed. We thought it was abandoned and locals came by to tell us stories about it - belonged to the cook at the restaurant in Marinatown. They kicked him out of the marina for non payment and he anchored here. Had been there for about a year. Was abandoned. Etc. etc. Turns out the owner came by to move her unsuccessfully as she was now stuck to the bottom! He indicated that youth in the area had stolen all his electronics and vandalized his boat and they were the reason she was grounded. Somewhere in there must be the real story. Who knows?? 

Looking out of the cove

We were able to spend a night at the Fort Myers Yacht Basin - date night, long, hot marina shower and decent walk to the Edison Ford Museum Gardens for an outdoor tropical plant sale and Food Truck event. Gorgeous trees there including this one HUGE fig tree. I fell in love with it and would have liked to wander around in her but she was roped off. Gazpacho and then Mexican Food truck for lunch and walk back to the marina. A day with over 10,000 steps felt great after so many days of very few steps aboard. During the day everyone was wearing masks. It felt pretty safe, outdoors, socially distanced, hand sanitizer. We had dinner aboard and after dinner we walked a couple of blocks back into town so Eddie could get vegan ice cream. Night time was a totally different story - I’d say 90% of the people were not wearing masks. I guess Saturday nights and the virus acts differently? Needless to say we got out of there pretty damn quickly.

Playing around in Ft. Myers

There are large metal sculptures all around Ft. Myers. This one is Vendedora de Frutas- the fruit seller. The sculptures are all of people whom might otherwise not be depicted in sculptures. Pretty cool. Created by a Colombian sculpture, Egardo Carmona. 

Eddie is standing in front of a fig tree. It is huge and goes on in both directions from the pic.

This is a cute little Nissan Figaro! I asked if I could have it for Chanukah. Only 20,000 were built in 1991,  most seem to be in Europe. This one was for sale for $18K.  Oh and the answer about Chanukah was it won’t fit on the boat!

Here’s a fun fact. Both the Marina Trawler Owners Assocation (MTOA) and the American Great Loop Crusing Association (AGLCA) have what they call Port Captains or Harbor Hosts. We were able to connect with the MTOA port captain and ship packages to their home. The couple Sandy and John were originally from Baltimore, had cruised full time for 8 years and were now living in Ft. Myers. Delightful couple - they couldn’t have been kinder or more accommodating and Sandy kept saying “anything you kids need, just let us know.” Cracked me up! We really are pretty self sufficient so all we needed was an address to ship parts to. 

We decided to cruise for Thanksgiving. We had a breezy morning on the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway (GICW) to Sanibel Island. There was a ton of boat traffic coming out of Ft Myers. I later read that people referred to it as the worst mile of the GICW. We anchored at the Ding Darling Anchorage, adjacent to the Ding Darling Preserve, a US wildlife preserve. It was gorgeous. At first the anchorage was a little rocky but that felt great to both of us. It settled down by evening for a lovely 3 nights.

Note - thrilled with the new washing machine - did a load of wash while cruising and hung it outside to dry. So easy and no more hurt hands from wringing out the hand washed clothes. The washer spins it so it’s almost dry - couple of hours in the sun and we are all set. 

This Thanksgiving was different from any we have ever had. We started our day with a kayak paddle into Tarpon Bay. We eventually made our way to the visitor center at the end of the bay where we got directions to the Hammock Creek Kayak trail. We were the only ones on the trail. It was so peaceful, lots of fish jumping and cool birds. Our little paddle turned into 5.2 miles and 3.5 hours. We earned our Thanksgiving dinner.

Map my walk said it was 5.2 miles! Hello arms!

            

This is a seemingly ordinary picture. When we were looking for beach property  about 15 years ago I bought a kitschy little statue. Maybe 2-3” tall. It was a pelican sitting on a piling. I had it on the shelf above my desk at the JCC and next to my computer at the Myerberg. It was my reminder that I was working so we could retire and that some day we would have days at the beach and later on the boat. When I kayaked up to this spot and saw those pelicans it took my breath away. There was my statue.  Yes! We are living our dream. Hard work pays off! 

Instantpot for the win!  I made a turkey breast in the instantpot. It came out delicious, roasted Brussels, stuffing and a sweet potato and pineapple dish. Cranberrry sauce and chocolate chip cookie brownies for the Captain. We ate out on the cockpit by candlelight. So much to be grateful for.

• Sound of the water around the boat
• Beautiful sunrise over the mangroves
• Sunny, warm weather
• Our family is all healthy
• My guy who lives this dream with me
• Stars, stars, stars
• A relationship with God, so easy to feel out here in this environment
• 4 happy adult children with 3 amazing partners
• 2 beautiful grand babies and a 
• New grand puppy
• And a bunch of great friends

On Saturday we set our alarms for 3:30am so we could watch the moon set over the mangroves. The brilliant moon was shimmering on the water and set as a glowing orange ball. And once the moon was set the sky looked like a million tiny diamonds sparkling. Such a treat. And of course every time I look at the stars I can hear my brother Pete saying, “look, there’s Orion’s Belt.” I think he must have said that a million times to me when we were kids on December nights on Longboat Key. I’m so glad we got up for the sky show. The entire time we could hear the dolphins breathing.That feels sacred to me. 

Sunday we decided to take the dinghy around to the beach at Point Ibiy on Sanibel Island. It was about a 20 minute fast dinghy ride, a little sloppy with all the boats out and about. We anchored Zoom off the shore and enjoyed a day in our chairs, with our books. Went for a little stroll, not too far as we didn’t want to leave Zoom. On our way back to the boat we toured a couple of canals and checked out homes and boats. 

Saturday was back to Fort Myers. Our goal was to head to the Ft Myers Yacht Basin, get a pump out and maybe fill our water tanks and prepare to cruise North on Sunday. There was an incredible amount of boat traffic again, back in that mile of no wake with hundreds of boats coming out of Ft. Myers. 

We got to the yacht basin and they were not crowded, allowed us to tie up for the afternoon at no charge. We pumped out, got water and walked to Publix to buy fruits and vegetables. I’m going to have to talk to our friends on Right Hand. I don’t think we are provisioning right. We just bought fruits and vegetables last week! All of our packages had arrived at John and Sandy’s and John was kind enough to bring them to the yacht basin. After leaving the marina we anchored across from the yacht basin in an anchorage named “between the bridges”, a good bit of vehicle noise but an interesting anchorage for one night. When I got up in the middle of the night I was in awe of how the lights from the bridges looked on the water.