Thanksgiving Dinner in Marco

November 28, 2013

This is our third Thanksgiving since we began living on the boat, but the first time that we cooked a Thanksgiving dinner on boat.  It was, without a doubt, one of the BEST turkey dinners I can remember.  Kudos to Joyce the chef!

Our first Thanksgiving on the boat we enjoyed a poolside turkey dinner at Twin Dolphin.  The marina restaurant supplied the turkey, everyone brought a side-dish and it was a lot of fun.

We were in Marco last Thanksgiving as well (an unintended tradition?) and we went to Marek's, a nearby and very fancy restaurant.  In fact we really didn't know how fancy it was when we made the reservation and only realized when people around the marina said " You are going to Marek's?"  While the meal was good (and expensive), it was not great; but, the service was exceptional.

This year it was a Publix's turkey breast, cooked to perfection in our small, but capable oven.  The turkey was incredibly moist and tasty.  Complimented by mashed potatoes, dressing, and green peas and topped with perhaps Joyce's best gravy ever it was simply delicious!

I have always been a fan of our Princess stove,  but she really outdid herself today.  We had the oven and all three burners going at the peak of the cooking.  Propane is a compact and versatile cooking fuel and you can do anything you can imagine - you just have to be creative on space at times.




Princess Stove - picture is of a newer model, but basically the same as ours!

We have pumpkin pie for dessert, but it will be a while before we are ready to eat another bite.

Tom
Docked at Rose Marina
Marco Island, FL

Burrowing Owls on Marco Island

November 28, 2013

We are spending an unplanned Thanksgiving at Rose Marina on Marco Island.  We had originally planned to leave her on Tuesday after laundry, provisioning, and some repairs, but a strong cold front has delayed our departure until the weekend.

The delay did provide an opportunity to get some pictures of some burrowing owls that nest near the marina.  We have seen the owls on several previous visits to Marco, but it is difficult to get good photos.  But today, one did some great posing and I got some decent shots.

The burrowing owls are 'a species of special concern'  (not quite classified as endangered) and are heavily protected in Florida.  You can learn more about them at the following website http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/birds/owls/burrowing-owl/ 

You do have to feel just a little sorry for the owner, of what I am sure is a fairly valuable piece of Marco real estate, who can do nothing with his property. 

We are cooking Thanksgiving dinner on boat today and enjoying a relaxing day.

Just as an update, our windlass seems to be working fine after some 'adjustments'.  We also did a long overdue replacement of the sensor on our propane fume detector.  The old sensor was getting increasingly flaky.  The design when the detector was first installed was a sensor on a 20' cable connected directly to the control unit.  This necessitated pulling a new cable, which was not an easy task.  The new sensor has a 12" pigtail which will make future replacement much easier.

Current plans are to leave here on Saturday or Sunday and start heading to Miami via Little Shark River, Marathon, and Key Largo (Rodriguez Key).


Tom
Docked at Rose Marina
Marco Island, FL

Marco Island

November 24, 2013

We are currently docked at Rose Marina on Marco Island.  As is our practice, Rose Marina is a relatively cheap entrée to an up-scale community.

We left Pelican Bay on a high tide the afternoon of 11/20/2013 and made the short trip to an anchorage near Useppa Island.   Useppa Island is another exclusive enclave that during the 1960s was a base for training the men involved with the Bay of Pigs 'invasion'. They lived on Useppa and trained on Cayo Costa in relative privacy and secrecy - how things have changed in 50 years!   Our  move from Pelican Bay was uneventful, except for discovery of a problem with intermittent engagement of our anchor windlass.  With the help of the 'wind-lad' (me) we were able to successfully raise our anchor.

On Thursday 11/21/2013 we traveled down Pine Island Sound and anchored at a spot off Punta Rassa in San Carlos Bay to stage for a trip down off-coast to Marco Island.

Friday offered a beautiful sail down the gulf coast with 15-20 knot winds almost close-hauled (off the bow); this was the second year in a row that this leg has been a great sail.  We made record time and were in Capri Pass, fueled and docked at Rose Marina by 2:00 PM.

Our first couple days here have been consumed by laundry and working on the windlass problem.  Lighthouse, the manufacturer, has been great and offered some good suggestions.  One of these was to relieve any strain on one of the power connections - apparently strain on one of the cables  has had a history of putting the related solenoid out of alignment and making it work erratically.   Totally removing the waterproof gland where the cable enters the control box markedly improved the performance,  but I had to 'play' with reinstalling the gland so as to not reintroduce the problem.  The biggest breakthrough, however, was when I disconnected the windlass switch in the cockpit (my idea).  This switch was installed in parallel with the primary foot switches and for reasons too complicated to go into, I suspected it might be draining too much of the control circuit current.  This pretty much eliminated the problem, at least for now.   We will be ordering a new solenoid assembly to carry as a spare if the strain/erratic solenoid issue returns/grows.  Since we spend the vast majority of our time at anchor, windlass performance is very important to us (especially the wind-lad)!

We had planned to leave here and head for Little Shark River on the far southwest coast of Florida on Tuesday, but a strong cold front is coming through tonight and will probably delay our departure.  Currently it looks like the best day to continue south will be Thursday (Thanksgiving Day).  We will probably celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday at Little Shark.

After yet another cold front passes, we will continue on to Miami.

Tom
Docked Rose Marina, Marco Island

Goodbye Manatees in Pelican Bay

November 20, 2013

 

After anchoring for almost two weeks in Pelican Bay (near Cayo Costa State Park), we are heading further south today.  We had planned to leave tomorrow morning, but since the entrance into Pelican Bay is quite skinny (shallow), and low tide is around 8:00 AM, we have decided to leave the anchorage today near high tide and anchor just off the intra-coastal waterway near Useppa Island.  Tomorrow, we will go about 30 miles down Pine Island Sound and anchor just off Punta Rassa for the night.  Friday, we plan to sail to Marco Island, where we will dock and ‘enjoy’ a few days of cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and other errands. 

 

One of the highlights of our stay has been the manatees that are in the lagoon near the anchorage.  In previous stays, we had never really visited the lagoon much, and when we did, we didn’t see too many manatees.  This year, there must have been at least ten of them, including a mum with her baby.  We found that a good way to see them was to turn the outboard off as we entered the lagoon and row from there.  One day, we had two of them that were following us closely and at times nudging the boat.  We do not feed wildlife, nor do we give manatees fresh water, so we initially we thought that they only wanted food and wouldn’t stick around when they saw that we didn’t have any to offer.  But, they hovered around the boat for 20 – 30 minutes.  They were close enough that we both had a chance to touch one of their heads, and both accidently touched them with the oars that we were using.  Another day, we drifted right up to the mum and her baby, and the mum hit the dinghy as it dove down under the water.  Even when they were less interested in our visits, we were normally surrounded with manatees within 50 feet of the dinghy.  They do move very slowly, and we hope they stay safe as they migrate to their winter homes.  Pelican Bay is a slow-speed manatee zone from April 1 through November 15^th, but they were still here yesterday, so they will need to keep an extra ear out for motors approaching.

 

Last year, we saw a lot of white pelicans who stopped either overnight or for a few days during their migration south, but this year, we’ve only seen a couple of small transient groups of them.

 

Joyce

Anchored Pelican Bay (Cayo Costa Island)

Schedules

November 15, 2013

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." - Lao Tzu

There She Blows!

November 14, 2013

Last night a strong cold front passed through Pelican Bay, bringing us some of the strongest winds we have weathered at anchor in a long time.

The winds were a solid 25-30 knots with gusts to 35.  One particular time that I was looking at the wind instrument, the wind was sustained for several minutes at around 32 knots.  

To give some perspective, the National Weather Service considers winds at or above 33 knots to be 'gale force'.

The holding is, however, good here and we had decent protection behind Punta Blanco Island for the worst of the blow.  The 45 lb. Delta anchor with 125' of 5/16" HT chain did its job well and we held securely.  We did set an electronic anchor watch and were ready to get underway if we dragged.

The positive side of  strong winds is that with our wind generator, we have had more electricity than we can use - a very rare occasion.  We ran the water maker for 7 hours, even though the water clarity here is not ideal for making water and ran the inverter to charge all our battery-powered devices as much as possible.   Even today we have had to turn off the solar power (the easiest to disable) for most of the day to keep the wind generator from going in and out of divert - a harmless but annoying behavior.

Today the winds have greatly subsided, and tomorrow we will get the dinghy back in the water and go ashore again.

Tom
Anchored Pelican Bay
Cayo Costa Island, FL

Pelican Bay Manatees

November 10, 2013

One of the reasons we really enjoy cruising on the west coast of Florida is the abundant wildlife.

We are currently anchored in Pelican Bay on Cayo Costa Island and just had a neat manatee encounter.  There is a small lagoon here that is know for sheltering manatees, but at least for the last few years we have not seen any here.  In the winter, manatees migrate to warmer waters, these days often near power plants, and we seem to be here after they leave.

But this year when we dinghied into the lagoon, there were at least 5-6, maybe more since they are hard to count.    They were mostly just soaking up warmth in the afternoon sun.  When they are really 'sun bathing' they will often lie on the surface motionless for up to 5 minutes.  The first time we saw this behavior, we thought there was something wrong with them - no just a short nap in the warm sun - I know the feeling.  These guys were lying on or just near the surface most of the time, just relaxing.

Manatees are hard to photograph and we did not get any good pictures today.  Following are some pictures taken a few years ago at Burnt Store Marina.  There is a corner of the basin there, near the 'Yacht Club', where they often hang out and are relatively easy to photograph from the docks.

It has, however, been a bit of a disappointment that we have not seen any white pelicans this year.  Last year the bay was full of them.  That, however, was the first time we had seen them in numbers in the almost 25 years that we have been coming here, so this is more 'typical'.  But we had hoped that they were going to make this a regular stop in their migration, but so far, at least, they have not appeared.

Tomorrow we plan to dinghy over to Cabbage Key for some fresh gulf shrimp and a  'Cheeseburger in Paradise' - yum!

Tom
Anchored in Pelican Bay, Cayo Costa Island, FL

Pelican Bay

November 8, 2013

 

We are currently anchored in Pelican Bay on Cayo Costa Island after a great trip down off-coast yesterday.

 

Wednesday we left our dock at Twin Dolphin Marina in Bradenton and traveled down the Manatee River and across Tampa Bay to Egmont Key.  We prefer to stage at Egmont for the trip down, but Egmont can be a ‘rolly’  anchorage, especially with an east wind.  Since we leave very early, Egmont is an easier departure than from the alternative anchorage at Emerson Point in the river.  The east wind had laid down enough for us try Egmont and it wasn’t that bad.

 

We were up at  3:00 AM and weighed anchor at Egmont at 4:00 AM.  It was a very dark night, with no moon and light cloud cover, but the transit out of the Southwest channel with a favorable current was straight forward and we entered the gulf with no problem.

 

From there it was 58 miles south off the coast to Boca Grande channel.  We motor sailed the whole way with excellent boat speed.  Sunrise at sea is always fun – following are some pictures of sunrise over Sarasota from about 3 miles off. 

 

 

 

 

 

As we approached Boca Grande, I noticed a cluster of AIS and radar images in the channel.  I had read that they were conducting dredging operations and guessed that was what we were seeing.  We then heard some VHF radio traffic from a tug calling a sailboat inbound in the channel – it turns out they were moving the ‘huge’ dredge barge out farther in the channel and he was warning them to stay clear – his words – “we have a 600’ barge on a 300’ towing howser, over 1000’ headed your way!”  We contacted the tug and reviewed our intentions to enter the channel from the north near buoys “7” and “8” and proceed inbound.  He said OK just stay to the red (right entering) side of the channel.  Luckily there is plenty of water outside the marked channel on the ‘red side’ and we stayed well outside the channel and out of his way; this was a good thing, because there was not much room left in the channel proper.  Following are some pictures, which do not do justice to his size (they never do).

 

 

 

We are currently anchored in Pelican Bay and plan to stay her for 10+ days. Rest and Relaxation after all the work of getting the boat ready for departure.  Following is a picture of a Pelican Bay sunrise.\

 

 

 

 

Tom

Anchored Pelican Bay, Cayo Costa Island, FL

Winter Cruise Begins

November 6, 2013

This is just a short note that we intend to leave our slip at Twin Dolphin Marina in Bradenton, FL today to to begin our winter cruise.

Today will be a 'grueling' 5+ mile trip down the Manatee River to stage for an early morning departure to Boca Grande (Cayo Costa) on Thursday.  We had hoped to depart by the end of October, but waiting for a part needed to resolve a problem we discovered on our sea trial and a fairly strong cold front has delayed our departure for a few days.

Thursday will in fact be grueling, as we go off-coast for a total of 75 nautical miles to Cayo Costa.  This trip is 13-14 hours, so to get a day light entrance into Pelican Bay we need to leave around 3:30 or 4:30 in the morning ,depending on where we anchor tonight.  

We will hang out at anchor in Pelican Bay on Cayo Costa for 10+ days; this is one of our favorite anchorages.  Then we will make our way to Miami by early December where we will wait for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas (Abacos).

The long term plan is make our way southward through the Abacos and then cross down to the 'out islands' of Eleuthera, Cat and Long Island and then make our way back north through the Exumas. 

We try to keep this blog fairly up to date on our whereabouts, so if you need/want to know where we are - please check it.

There is a map to the left of the latest blog entry that shows our latest position.  A hyperlink below that map (Cruise 2013-14) displays another map that shows our trip. 

Tom & Joyce
Docked in Bradenton, FL