Fort Myers, FL to Key West, FL

Total Miles Traveled 1507

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I’m not making any excuses for how long it’s been since my last update, what can I say, the fun meter is on high and we’re in Key West!

A view from our boat at Stock Island Marina Village and the Perry Hotel at sunset. 

We had a great time visiting our friends at Fort Myers, and a special thanks to David and Barbara for providing a great dock for us to hang out over the holidays.  On January 5^th, we moved about 11 miles to the Fort Myers City Marina, visiting friends and preparing for our adventure to Key West.

We departed the marina January 6^th at daybreak and cruised 59 miles to an anchorage at Marco Island, FL.  This is a well-protected anchorage and short dinghy ride to a Winn Dixie grocery store…..with a dinghy dock.  We held up here for 4 days waiting for a weather window to move to Marathon, FL and to visit our friends Merrill, Jan, and Tim from Indiana.

We had planned to leave Marco Island at daybreak on January 11^th but we had a negative low tide and didn’t leave our anchorage until 9 a.m... During normal conditions there are high and low tides, but the wind and moon phases can affect the normal tidal swing. The approach to the anchorage has a few very shallow sections so leaving before a normal low tide was not worth the risk.

Our cruising conditions heading south from Marco Island were perfect.  We normally cruise about 60 miles from Marco Island to a protected anchorage on Little Shark River, but with the exceptional conditions on the Gulf of Mexico, and with no change in the overnight forecast, we anchored about 3 miles offshore near Big Sable Creek. 

 

On January 12^th we departed our anchorage at daybreak and cruised 47 miles to Boot Key Harbor at Marathon, FL.  Our friends that we have traveled with since the river system are here so we wanted to visit with them before continuing on to Key West.  Randy and Sherri m/v Priorities, Charlie and Robin m/v The Lower Place, Steve and Libby m/v San Souci, and Steve and Jan m/v Forever Young.

Boot Key Harbor has a mooring field that is operated by the city of Marathon.  There are 216 mooring balls that can be rented but they are normally full in January.  They also have a few slips at the marina but they are usually full.  They will not take reservations so you have to be in the harbor and call them before they will assign a mooring ball.  If none are available, you have an option to anchor until something opens up.  Anchoring space in the harbor is very limited and also usually full.  When we arrived, everything was full and there were 8 people on the waiting list.  Randy and Sherri have been here since early December and are on a mooring ball and told us a boat had recently left that was anchored in front of them outside of the mooring field.  We maneuvered our way through the field and dropped the hook giving us plenty of swing room and a hundred feet or so from the closest boat.   The next day we dropped the dinghy and spent the afternoon visiting our friends.  Everything was great until we returned to the boat.

As we arrived at the boat we saw this sticker on the window and according to the city marina we have to be anchored 150 feet from the mooring field boundary, which isn’t marked on the waterway.  If we moved to this distance from our anchorage we would be in less than 5 feet of water, which is the draft of our boat.  It just so happened the city had one open slip available for our size boat at the marina….hmmm?  Since it was getting late, and we were only going to be here 2 more days, we took the slip.

Our favorite “must stop” when visiting Marathon, Berdine’s on the water, with an awesome deep fried key lime pie.

We departed Boot Key Harbor on January 15^th and cruised 44 miles to Stock Island Marina Village; this will be our home until March 15^th.  Our friends Mike and Jan m/v Trust Me, from our home port at Green Turtle Bay are here and arrived in early December. 

We saw this stingray doing the back stroke during a dinghy ride.

Sunken boat on our dinghy ride to the Stoned Crab restaurant. 

Sharks!  These nurse sharks were hanging out near the entrance of the Hurricane Hole restaurant, one of our favorite dinghy rides for lunch.

Fresh Lobster waiting to be ordered from the Stoned Crab restaurant.

Jelly fish behind our boat one morning.

Happy Birthday!  Breakfast at the Blue Heaven Restaurant Key West.

Ahhh, fresh Gulf shrimp at Key West.

These shrimp boats are moored across the waterway from our marina.

I installed this hydro-fin on our dinghy motor, this helps get us on plane faster with more than 2 people in the dinghy.

Full moon at the marina, as you can see, we almost needed a shoehorn to get into our slip.

Moni made a special Valentine's day Breakfast........

Our current plan is to leave here March 15th and work our way back up the west coast of Florida to Fort Myers, where we will spend a few weeks before heading back up the rivers later this spring.  

Carrabelle, FL to Fort Myers, FL

Total Miles Traveled 1281

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Well, so much for getting a blog out every couple of weeks.  I can’t believe I haven’t posted a new blog update since November 26^th, and gee, can you believe that was way back in 2020. 

We made our Gulf crossing from Carrabelle, FL to Clearwater, FL on November 27^th.  We departed the marina around 11:30 a.m. and anchored at Dog Island for a couple of hours before starting our overnight adventure.  Although the forecast indicated possible thunderstorms north of us, we had a great forecast for the crossing.  We cruised 174 miles, taking 22 hours to Clearwater Pass.  The old saying “The Third Times a Charm” proved to come true as this was our third overnight crossing and the first time we have been able to see the horizon after dark as we were blessed with an almost full moon.  We also had seas less than one and a half foot, and an awesome sunset and sunrise. 

We anchored at Clearwater Beach four days, mainly to recuperate from being awake for most of the crossing, but also to visit Clearwater Beach and visit our favorite seafood restaurant Frenchie’s.  One morning while relaxing on the back deck, a paddle boarder stopped to visit.  We talked to him for a while about our adventure from Kentucky and our destination to the Keys.  Moni asked if he minded if she took his picture and he offered to do a hand stand on his board for her.  We were impressed!

On Wednesday, December 2^nd we cruised from Clearwater, across Tampa Bay to Sarasota, FL.  While crossing Sarasota Bay we noticed what appeared to be a helicopter chasing a boat across the Bay.  At first we thought it might be someone that had stolen a boat, but after watching it for a mile or so we concluded it was a sales video for the boat. We have cruised over 19,000 miles since 2015 and this was definitely a first for us.

If you look close you can see the helicopter in front of the boat in this picture.

We weighed anchor at daybreak on December 3^rd and cruised 53 miles to our favorite anchorage at Punta Blanca Island located south of Charlotte Harbor.  We stop here every year when traveling south, and also on our way back north in the spring.  We anchored here for 10 days.

There are two Manatees in this picture……but they are the boats.  Kady Krogen makes the Manatee Trawler, the boat in the foreground is our friend’s, m/v Forever Young, and the boat in the background is our friend’s, m/v Lila Blue.

This is the second time we have watched a helicopter land and take off from this small island, a symbol on the side of it indicates it is a state or county aircraft.  We assume there must be some type of air or water monitoring equipment located on the island.  The only access to this island is by boat.....or helicopter.

This Osprey caught a huge fish, we watched it all morning and it consumed most of it.

Fog approaching after a cold front passed through.

This is a huge Osprey, we had to dingy over to see what it was, from the boat it looked like a large animal.  If you look close you can see it got caught up in someone's fishing line and eventually drown trying to get free.  We cut the line and moved it to shore.

Steve and Jan, m/v Forever Young anchored with us for a few days.  We took the dinghies to Cabbage Key a couple of times for lunch and one day explored the Tunnel of Love.  This is a hidden mangrove “tunnel” to access a secluded beach on the Gulf.  Moni and I found it a few years ago but didn’t realize it must have been high tide because this time we had to row or pull the dinghy’s several times to get to the access point.  Little did we know that after exiting the thick narrow passage, an alligator would be laying along the shore waiting for his next meal.

I attempted to add a video but after several attempts I couldn't get the file size small enough for bloggers file size limit.  These are clips from the video.

On December 11^th we cruised up the Caloosahatchee River, also part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, to Fort Myers, Florida.  We anchored behind Lofton Island for a couple of days visiting friends at different marinas by dinghy, and then moving to the City of Fort Myers Yacht Basin Marina December 13 through the 19^th.   We met our Looper friends Kevin and Jill, m/v Chasing 80, here and also m/v Forever Young caught up with us after a couple of days.

We met our friends David and Barbara, m/v Miss My Money in 2015 on the Loop, they have two docks about 11 miles up the river from Fort Myers so we moved to one of their docks December 20^th.   Our original plan was to rent a car and drive to Cocoa, FL to visit with Moni’s Mom, brother and sister, and have our kids and grandkids meet us there.  With the rapid increase in Covid cases in  both states, the uncertainty of flight schedules, and the risk of bringing the Covid virus to Moni’s family in Cocoa, we decided to stay at Fort Myers for Christmas and New Year’s.   When Barbara and David found that we had cancelled our travel plans, they invited us to join them and David’s Mom for Christmas dinner at their house. 

Steve and Jan m/v Forever Young also moved to one of the docks close to us and flew back to Tennessee to visit their families for the holidays.   When they returned we explored the area with our dinghies and with David and Barbara on their pontoon boat. 

Our current plan is to move back to the Fort Myers City Marina on Tuesday January 5^th and visit with our friends Charlie and Robin,  m/v The Lower Place and cruise to an anchorage at Marco Island on January 6^th.  We will spend a few days there visiting with Merrill and Jan from Indiana and waiting for a weather window to cross to Marathon, FL, then to our final winter destination at Key West mid-January.