We are 'home'!

June 1, 2012

We are 'home'.  No not Fayetteville nor Bradenton, but our boating home on the west coast of Florida. 

As I write this we are anchored in Pelican Bay on Cayo Costa Island, where we have been many times before and our first destination on this cruise;  our previous anchorage was at Little Shark River in the Ten Thousand Islands also a familar destination. 

We have traveled many miles over the last week and I want to talk about the trip, but first I want to talk about what we both feel - that we are 'home'.

The Bahamas are nice: the water is clear and multi-colored;  the beaches are pretty;  there are many interesting settlements to explore.

The west coast of Florida is as beautiful, however, in its own way.  But two striking and related differences between the two places are immediately apparent:  the water here is murky and the wildlife is incredibly abundant.  I say that they are related, because the water is murky because it is full of nutrients and micro-organisms.  This forms the foundation for a rich food chain.  Since arriving here yesterday morning we have seen: numerous dolphins, a manatee,  brown pelicans, egrets, an osprey carrying a freshly caught fish; two osprey nests visible from the boat; two roseate spoonbills, and numerous other birds.  That is probably more wildlife than we saw in two months in the Bahamas.

And it just feels like home!

Now about the trip....  To put our recent travels in perspective, we took about 5 months to travel from Bradenton, Florida near Tampa to Hopetown, Abacos, Bahamas;  we will make the return trip in about 3 weeks.  We are covering some water!

On Tuesday May 29th, we made about a 75 mile trip from Rodriguez Key to Little Shark River on the southwestern-most tip of Florida.  The first leg was about 30 miles down the Hawk Channel to the 'high' bridge at Channel 5, where we crossed into Florida Bay. 

We then traveled up the so-called 'Yacht Channel' to Cape Sable.  This was our first time on this channel and will probably be our last. This channel cuts the corner across Florida Bay and sports some shallow water and tricky sections.  We did not have any depth problems although the depth sounder often read alarmingly low numbers, that interestingly were often less than charted depths.  This may be due to shoaling, but also may be due to grass on the bottom 'fooling' the depth sounder.  There certainly was a lot of floating grass.

As we were approaching Cape Sable, our sea water cooling flow again started to show signs of restriction.  We stopped and checked the strainer (filter) which had minimal contents.  So I again played 'deep sea' diver and dove under the boat to clear the thruhull.  For context this is a very desolate piece of water, we had not seen another boat since near Channel 5 (about 25 miles).  As I jumped in the water I found that there was a significant current running and of course the water was very murky.  After rigging a couple of lines to hold on to, I finally found and cleared the thruhull of a significant wad of grass - problem again solved.

After a 13 hour day, we anchored in the beautiful, but very buggy Little Shark River.

The next day, we rested up for our planned 120 mile overnight to Boca Grande and Cayo Costa leaving around 3:30 in the afternoon.  People talk about the need for self-reliance on  passages like gulf stream crossings, but let me tell you, those waters are 'crowded' compared to the waters around Cape Sable - we saw ONE sailboat in the distance for a short period in about 10 hours of sailing.

Then the first excitement of the night... I was on watch a little after midnight.  Due to my excellent watch-keeping skills (or blind luck more likely :-)), I saw what I thought was an unusual dark shape off our port side.  I followed it and it seemed to be somewhat hull-shaped - an unlit fisherman, a pirate, or just a vivid imagination in the dark?  I pulled out my bright flashlight and shined it in the direction of the shape - a hull-form, with some reflective material, curving around to approach our stern, was obvious.  Seconds after my light, the boat erupted with a returning spot light and a burst of speed, completing his not so stealthy approach to the stern of our boat. From a position off our starboard quarter, they identified themselves as Coast Guard, asked a few questions, said "Have a nice night", and disappeared into the darkness.

Later I was off-watch and sleeping when around 4:00AM Joyce woke me up regarding some confusing traffic; we were now south west of Sanibel Island.  There were two fishing boats that, as they often do, were making numerous turns making the crossing situation very confusing.  Complicating the situation was that the working lights (the deck lights used to provide illumination for work on deck) were completely obscuring any navigation lights on one boat. 

After quickly throwing on some shorts and shaking the sleep from my eyes, I confirmed a truly confusing passing situation.  I made a call to the fishing vessel at position X and received a reply from the Shrimp Trawler 'Miss Maddy'.  We exchanged courses and we were, in fact, on slowly converging courses.  He also confirmed that some of his navigation lights were not working.  Complicating the situation was that he was planning a turn to the west, right in front or at us. He also said that he was constrained by a lot of 'bad ground' in the area.  I agreed to turn right and go across his stern and to the east. Well we passed safely, but definitely a bit too close for comfort.

We arrived at Pelican Bay around 10:30 the next morning after about a 19 hour trip.  We were more than ready for a little nap and a light day.

On Monday we plan to make our final major leg as we transit from Boca Grande to Tampa outside in the Gulf.  Then it will be a short hop the next day up the Manatee River to Twin Dolphin Marina, completing our 2011-12 cruise.


Tom
Pelican Bay
Cayo Costa Island
Lee County, FL
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