Burnt Store, Final Day

This morning we returned our rental, and got ferried back to the marina by the rental company.  Enterprise gets our business mostly because they pick you up and drop you off.  After that it was a quick ride out to Cabbage Key aboard Gizmoe, the Nagle’s 29′ Grady White.

Gizmoe

Coming out of Burnt Store Marina at 26 knots, almost four times faster than we travel.

The money taped to the walls and ceiling of the restaurant made famous by Jimmy Buffett.

“there are over 70,000 dollar bills on the walls, with written names, sayings and graffiti. The tradition started years ago when a commercial fisherman, flush with cash, taped a few bills to the wall, ensuring he would have enough money to return for more libations. Famous celebrities are reported to have tacked their dollars such as John F. Kennedy, Ernest Hemingway, Jimmy Carter and others.”(1)

A view towards the dock of the restaurant.

Did we have a cheeseburger here?  Of course.  I don’t eat many burgers and this one tasted, well, like a cheeseburger.

On our way back to Burnt Store we swung by Useppa island (private) and saw this boat being towed off a shoal by a few BoatUS tow boats. We saw them trying to get it off when we were heading over for lunch and they were still working at it a few hours later.

We did a quick “head count” of the number of Erie people we talked to at Burnt Store.  The total was ten, a few of the people we hadn’t seen in quite a number of years.  A number of them didn’t even know it was us aboard Liberty but simply stopped by to see the boat after seeing the EYC burgee on the bow or the hailing port on the stern.  There was one last dip in the pool this evening as we pull up stakes tomorrow morning and head south to Captiva for a rendezvous with the Lord Nelson Tug Nellie D. tomorrow and then the Pilgrim 40 Destiny the following day.

Dave

(1) http://www.authenticflorida.com/authentic-travel/weekend-getaway/cheeseburger-in-paradise-authentic-cabbage-key/

Burnt Store Marina, Day 5

Just a few dock from us sits a beautiful Nordhavn 62.  155,000 pounds of boat powered by a single 325 hp Lugger engine.

The transom indicates the boat’s home port is Port Colborne, ON.

We couldn’t get far enough from the boat to take a picture of her entire hull so this image from Nordhavn’s web site will have to do.  A ten year old one is for sale for $1.4 million.  We couldn’t even afford the insurance.

The weather is finally breaking (again).  Yesterday it was in the mid 60’s, today in the lower 70’s and warmer for the rest of the week.  There is always something to keep us busy during the day.  The cool mornings keep us in our berth for a while where we can have our morning coffee and catch up on the local and national news.  We see that the governor of Florida has declared a state of emergency due to the fact the Corps of Engineers is dumping the cess pool also known as Lake Okeechobee into the rivers that drain onto the east and west coast discoloring and polluting the ocean waters impacting tourism.  All the rain during this “dry” season has raised to lake level a foot above the maximum height threatening the dike system forcing the releasing of the water.

Lunch takes some “time” and there is the usual boat chores.  We changed out one of the fuel filters as we were starting to notice the vacuum gauge starting to show some restrictions.  The wires from the fans in the pilot house finally got their wire chases painted and installed which hides the wiring, the dinghy got a new stern line attachment point as the old location was in the way of mounting the motor resulting in some choice words on more than one occasion.  If you want carry out Chinese for dinner (which we do), that turns into a time consuming process as Burnt Store is about nine miles from the nearest carry out place.  You need to plan ahead.

In the early evening we head across the street from the marina to the pool for a dip before coming back to the boat for a drink and then dinner.

We pretty much had the entire pool to ourselves. Even the skipper went in.

Tomorrow, we board the Nagle’s Grady White go-fast boat and head over to Cabbage Key where Jimmy Buffet is reported to have written “Cheeseburger in Paradise”.  I suppose we will have to have one.

 

Sunset at the marina.

Dave

Burnt Store, Day 3

Being in “port”, we don’t have a lot of exciting activities going on.  Yesterday we were off to the car rental place to pick up the economy model ($213/week) we had reserved.  When we got there, they didn’t have any small vehicles left.  To quote Jerry Seinfeld, “You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don’t know how to *hold* the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.”

They offered us a minivan (for the same price), but no thanks.  Since it was going to take too long to bring in a small car from one of their other locations; the said four Lincoln Navigators were on their way, they offered us a Ford Mustang convertible ($488/wk) for the economy model price ($213/week).

You have to like orange.

What is with the “ground speed” on the speedometer? Did they think somebody would mistake this gauge for air speed?

The skipper got a haircut at a local place as he was starting to look like a cruising sailor.  The going price here is $12, which we found rather inexpensive.  As it was a rainy day we took advantage of it to do some laundry.

Hanging out in the laundry room.

Later we went over to the Nagle’s house for dinner with Doug and Carol, Carol’s mom “Grandma” and Gib and Suzie Loesel.

Today it was some boat work; while the skipper scrubbed the deck the mate cleaned the inside before heading over to the heated pool for a quick dip (the mate, not the skipper).  We then headed north to Sarasota to visit with son Aaron but first we stopped in Venice to kill some time waiting for Aaron to get off work at 1900 hours.

The beach at Venice.

It was a good day for surfers with the waves rolling in on the Gulf.

In Sarasota we took Aaron out for dinner, to Perkins of all places before dropping him of at his temporary “digs”, a warehouse where the other guys he was working with were staying.  As it is an hour plus drive each way we were able get a feel of the Mustang.  I believe our age is showing as I couldn’t really see any advantage of that car over the Ford Focus we had rented when we came north for Christmas.  Sure it has more acceleration, but there is a limit of what you can do with that in heavy traffic.  The ride is a bit harsher, being a sports car and has less room than the Focus.  Gas milage is a lot worse, enough said.

Dave

Burnt Store Marina

After a quiet night at anchor in Pelican Bay, we awoke to gray skies and a increasing southerly wind of about 15 knots.

Lady Catherine was gracing the anchorage this morning.

Liberty a few days ago in Pelican Bay, we liked the clouds and sky.

We had an uneventful cruise over to the Matlacha Pass where we fell in line with the Pilgrim 30 “Water Lily” who we followed up to the SR78 bridge where we anchored so we could raft up and tour the respective boats.

Water Lily with her new top side paint job.  She is hull #1 of 1, built in 1993.

She is a great little day boat with some minimal overnight accommodations.

After the “tours” were over we headed north to Burnt Store Marina with Coast Guard broadcasting marine warnings concerning the windy weather approaching the west coast (gale warnings).  We signed up for a weeks worth of dockage, and arranged for a rental car for a week.  Our youngest son Aaron called us from Sarasota last night (he lives outside of Buffalo NY).  He was needed there for work so we will be driving up to see him in a couple of days.  It is too bad he wasn’t send down there when our other children came to St. Pete to visit us.

Liberty’s dock for the next week.

Today:  27 Statute miles in 3.8 hours.  Total: 2722 miles

Dave

Return to Pelican Bay, Cayo Costa

Early this morning our cruising friends aboard Nellie D. headed south and we headed back north, although a bit later in the morning.  After coming to anchor, not far from where we had been the day before yesterday we had a nice peanut butter and jelly wrap lunch.  As we have been away from a dock for five days, pickings (at least for lunch) are getting a bit slim.  Dinner is no problem as the freezer is pretty much chock full.

We launched the dinghy and headed into the manatee swimming hole where we saw not five, not ten but a total of zero manatees.  We figure they must have decided that this month was far to cold to be here and headed for Key West.

The entrance through the mangroves to where the manatees are supposed to congregate. We weren’t the only people here, a boat came in ahead of us and one was coming in while we were leaving.

We took a quick tour of the anchorage, there are only twenty five boats anchored here this evening.  There is a trimaran close by the mangroves that is anchored bow and stern.  We haven’t seen any sign of life on board, it appears to be a boat that is on its way to being a derelict.  The nearest civilization is about ten miles away so it isn’t being used as a night time home for anybody.  Maybe somebody just doesn’t want to pay dockage fees for the beast.

At least they took the sails off the booms. The headsail is pretty ratty with the sun cover rotting off.

Liberty flying her anchor ball off the starboard spreader. I bet we are the only person in the anchorage that is “legal”. Most people probably don’t even know what an anchor ball is, which is a good thing as we motored all the way to Captiva with it up yesterday. Now we have a post it note stuck on the chart plotter when it is deployed.

Mango smoothies with a dash of coconut rum.

Today:  15 Statute miles in 2.2 hours.  Total: 2695 miles.

Dave

Tween Waters Anchorage, Captiva Island, FL

The anchor came aboard at 0900 hours this morning and we dropped it in a fairly small anchorage off Captiva Island at 1110.  Obviously a tough day on the water.

A sunrise picture for a change.

We passed these two boats being assisted by TowBoatUS. The channel is nowhere near where these boats are beached so it would be interesting to know how both ended up here.

The Nellie D. crew ferried us ashore where we ate lunch at the Green Flash Waterfront Restaurant.  Since the green flash is only seen at the instant the sun disappears below the horizon, you would think that the restaurant would need to be on the Gulf side of the island which it isn’t.  Oh well, its a technicality.  The food was good but our waitress wasn’t exactly the most friendly person in the world.  We thought she might have been on the loosing end of a cage fight.

A walk on the beach on the Gulf side, a wander through the South Seas Island Resort with a stop in their coffee shop for some sort of a Starbucks iced, chocolate coffee drink before returning to our dinghy for the ride back to the boat completed the afternoon.  We picked up a real estate flyer to check out prices and found we probably couldn’t afford anything here.  You could get a one bedroom, one bath place for around $200k, or maybe spend three to four million for a decent place on the beach.  There seemed to be quite a few for sale for some reason, but maybe it simply was because there are so many on the island.  There were some empty building lots for sale, starting around $150k.  Like most narrow islands, there is only one main road on or off and in this case you have to come from Ft. Myers, across Sanibell Island to get to Captiva.  Maybe you get used to the traffic.  We are not saying it is expensive here, but eating at the Green Flash gets you dinghy access.  If you don’t eat here you can tie you dinghy next door for $10/day.

The anchorage at Captiva.

Our plans change with the weather forecast, which changes like the wind.  We had planned on going into Naples on Wednesday but the long range forecast would have us bottled up there until Monday at the least due to wind velocity and direction.  So, Naples will have to wait.  Instead we “plan” on going back to the Cayo Costa area so we can meet with the owner of the one and only Pilgrim 30 ever built on Matlacha, the small island between Pine Island and Cape Coral on Tuesday.  From there we will make the short jump to Burnt Store Marina so as to be tied to a dock while the wind blows for a few days.

Today:  16 Statute miles in 2.3 hours.  Total:  2680 miles.

Dave

 

Pelican Bay Anchorage, Cayo Costa (Lacosta Island)

Leaving our anchorage at 0815 hours this morning, we continued our trek south.  The general plan is to spend some time in the Pine Island area, maybe getting as far south as Marco Island before heading back north to Burnt Store before going to Ft. Myers and then east.

We arrived at the highly touted Pelican Bay anchorage at 1115 hours, and dropped the hook not far from where Nellie D. was anchored.  Their plan was to head into Ft. Myers today but heard from other cruisers there was no room at the inn, all the mooring balls were spoken for.  They decided to stay and ended up with us as neighbors again.

After lunch the four of us ferried into the docks at the Cayo Costa Ranger Station after stopping in an inlet in the mangroves to see all the manatees.  The last time Nellie D. was here they had to stop the engine on their dinghy as the manatees were so thick, or so they said.  Not a manatee was to be seen today.

We hiked a total of  three and one half miles across the island and up the coast in search of a McDonald’s or a Five Guys.  We couldn’t find either so we had to settle for a Klondike bar at the ranger station upon our return.  The weather couldn’t have been better,  sunny to partly cloudy, temperatures in the mid to upper 70’s and light winds.

On our way across the island.

The Gulf of Mexico with a light wind off the beach (East Wind).

We didn’t expect to see cactus growing in Florida, but here it is.

When we went to leave we found other dinghy’s had tied up to the same cleat.  It was Bicki’s job to untie it as she originally cleated the line.

A close up of the snarl on the cleat.

Drinks and dinner were on Nellie D. this evening.  Before we ate the guys left the girls on Nellie D. (with the wine) while they took Nellie D.’s dinghy that is equipped with a depth finder to find a path through the shallows to the south.  To be fair, the girls sent the guys off with a solo cup of wine (about an inch) and a little baggie of crackers.   The tour boats that drop off visitors on the island enter from the south so we know there is a path through the shallows.  For the most part, the charts are fairly accurate and the depth contours pretty much followed our depth finder readings except in a few critical places.

The location at the end of the green line (off the red boat) was a problematic area. There was a post stuck in the water which we assumed was a marker for the tour boats but the water around it was quite shallow (less than four feet).

We decided that the only way out to the south would be to get on the tail of a tour boat as he headed out.  We will more than likely take the cowards way out and head north to pick up the ICW.  When we came in we only had about a foot and one half under our keel but we might have been a little far west of the deeper water.

Not saying this is a popular anchorage, but we counted 60 plus boats anchored here today. This location is touted as being as nice as any anchorage in the Bahamas.

Liberty to the left, Nellie D. to the right and a sailboat farther ahead in the the middle.

We only said goodnight to our friends on Nellie D. this evening and not goodbye as we are going to follow them south tomorrow to Captiva.

Today:  21 statute in 3.1 hours, Total for the trip: 2664 miles.

Lemon Bay Anchorage, Englewood, FL

The crew from Nellie D. came over for breakfast this morning, a breakfast that almost didn’t happen.  It turns out somebody neglected to adjust the cold setting on the refrigerator after they had defrosted it.  It was running a lot more efficiently than before causing all the vegetables and eggs (eggbeaters) to freeze.  Of course this wasn’t noticed until shortly before our guests were planning on arriving and the Mate wasn’t happy.   If we had installed the Lobster Fridge Optimizer this wouldn’t have happened as the Optimizer replaces the analog thermostat with a fancy digital programmable unit that constantly monitors and adjusts the run time of the compressor and fan.  We were able to thaw things out so the breakfast of french toast, cheese and vegetable omelets, bacon and coffie was pulled off with out a hitch.  We found one of the ways to attract people to our boat to visit us was to ply them with food and drink.  At least it works with Dave and Bicki.

Again, we said our goodbyes and they headed back to Nellie D., with there recent diesel fuel delivery issue fixed.  It turned out to be a fitting leaking air into the system installed just before their Racor fuel filters; one of the few items they hadn’t touched when working in their engine room.  They outdistanced us by about 18 miles today as we had to wait for a few bridges and stopped off in Venice for two and one half hours.

Nellie D. on the mooring ball next to us. Their mast is down so they don’t have to wait on as many bridges as we do.

Bridges, yes we had to deal with bridges today, eight of them as a matter of fact.  We were able to get under two with out stopping but the other six required a wait of anywhere from a few to fifteen minutes.

We passed this house of many glass windows on our way south today.  It sits on a point of land so it has some spectacular views.

There is a free park dock in Venice right next to the Venice YC.  We stopped there to meet and chat with Grant and Bette, owners of a 42 foot Nordic Tug.  They are from Rochester and we have been in loose contact with them since last fall.  They are snowbirds like us and are searching for a good spot to leave their boat in Florida when they go home for the summer.  While we might have been able to stay the night at the dock, it was posted No Docking from midnight to 6 AM.  One of the locals said you could probably stay overnight with out any issues but more nights than that might get you in trouble.  There was a sailboat there and by the looks of the dock lines on the pilings, they had been there more than a few hours.  As it is Friday evening, and we weren’t sure of the surrounding area as far as unsavory characters goes, we decided to bail out and go to an anchorage were we are guaranteed to be alone.  When we were in St. Pete, we never locked the boat during the time we were there, of course the dock was on the other side of a locked gate.

Grant and Bette’s Nordic Tug at Fisherman’s Wharf in Venice. They pay less per month than we did at St. Pete. The daily dockage rate is $2.50/foot here but only $1.75/foot in St. Pete.

This sailboat has been lying on the shoal in Venice for at least a month. They boat doesn’t seem to be in bad shape (yet).

It is nice and quiet at anchor tonight, the wind having died off to just a light breeze.

Today:  32 statute miles in 5.2 engine hours.  Total for the trip: 2643 miles.

Dave

Sarasota, Day 2

After we rolled out of the sack this morning and had breakfast we went ashore, hiked up to the bus station and got dropped off at The Ringling, which is an art and circus museum.  John Ringling’s name is most recognized for the  Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus although at one point he owned most of the traveling circuses in America.  When he died, he reportedly had only $311 in the bank and willed his art collection, museum and house to the state of Florida which has become the tourist attraction it is today.

At the dinghy dock we could only find one space for our dinghy, right next to a beat up hard dingy that had ratty rails. We needed to use a life jacket to protect the paint on our topsides. I guess we should invest in a few small fenders for such situations.

Most of these dinghy’s don’t move, they have a few inches of water in the bottom of them indicating that they haven’t been used in a few days.

The Circus Collection has a 3/4″ to the foot scale model of a complete circus.  It contains 42,143 items, not including small pieces such as thousands of railroad stakes. There are eight large tents, 152 circus wagons, 1,500 workers and performers, 7,000 folding chairs and more than 500 hand-carved animals and everything can be packed up into the 55 train cars, also individually hand-crafted

It is hard to get a sense of scale looking at this image, but this model goes on forever.

The detail is astounding.

Learning about the circus was quite interesting; they had 1300 people that could come into town by train in the middle of the night, set up during the day, perform and leave that evening.

In the “original” museum they had old circus equipment displayed.

Price of admission was $25, but it was well worth it.  It was easy for us to spend a half day here with out looking at stuff in detail.

The art museum was incredible, it is hard to believe that one person could amass that much artwork.  Ringling’s house which we also toured is a 36,000 square foot mansion that has 41 rooms and 15 bathrooms.

Another bus ride back to the center of town, a short hike to the marina and as we approached Liberty in the dinghy, what did we see but our friends in Nellie D. tied to the mooring buoy right next to us.  They left St. Pete late this morning and fought what is believed to be a fuel system issue all the way down which is giving them something to do this evening.  Isn’t cruising fun?

Dave

Marina Jack’s Mooring Balls, Sarasota, FL

After breakfast his morning we topped off our water tanks then dropped off two bottles of wine that we decided we weren’t probably going to drink in the skippers lounge for who ever wanted them. One of the hermit crabs that live aboard the small sailboats probably will think he died and went to heaven.  Next it was over to the office where we traded our dock keys for our $40 deposit.  We tried to give them our used genset antifreeze but they wouldn’t take it.  Evidently the Nellie D. folks must be bigger tippers than us because they took their antifreeze.  Back on the boat, we took in our power cord, started the engine and just as we were getting ready to retrieve our dock lines, the fog rolled in.  Shut down the engine and wait as we couldn’t even see across the basin, but fifteen minutes the fog lifted enough that we could be on our way.

Just as we approached the Skyway Bridge, the US Coast Guard came alongside, with their blue light flashing.  They asked if we had been inspected lately (the answer is never) so they came aboard.  They were very courteous, downright friendly in fact while asking to see our documentation papers, trash disposal plan, oil discharge place card and all the required safety equipment.  They inspected the bilge for oil and complimented us on how clean the bilge was as well as on the general condition of the boat.  These are young kids and are probably pretty much bored to tears having to do boat inspections. We had no violations; no surprise there.  There was a lot of small talk and one guy mentioned that when they saw the boat he really wanted to come aboard to check it out.  That is OK as we are used to giving boat tours; it was almost dead calm, we weren’t in any hurry and now should be relatively immune to boarding for a while.

The guys didn’t mind smiling for the camera.

They didn’t have this manned when they came along side us. I guess they figured we were probably harmless.

Tampa Skyway Bridge

Just before we entered the Anna Marie Sound, south of the entrance to Tampa Bay we came across two “strange” craft moving slowly though the water.  It didn’t take long to overhaul and pass them, it would be interesting to know their story.  Heck, if I was in the CG, I would certainly board those guys to see what was down below.

How many of those ports open?

This turned out to be a trimaran with no sailing rig. I don’t think I would have painted lightning bolts on this craft.

On the mooring ball at Marina Jack’s.

Downtown Sarasota from the water.

Sunset

Tomorrow we play tourist again when we head into town to the Ringling Museum of Art.

Today:  38 statute miles in 6 engine hours.  Total for the trip: 2611 statute miles.

Dave