Pineland FL - Our Hailing Port

October 26, 2013

We recently took a car trip to Pineland Florida, our boat's hailing port.

We are often asked where Pineland is located and occasionally someone says, "That boat has never been to Pineland!"  I will answer those questions in this blog entry.

First what is a hailing port?  Traditionally it is a port where a boat is  based.  You will occasionally hear the word in common speech as in 'He hails from Florida'.  It traditionally appears on the stern of the ship under the name.

Why does Barefoot hail from Pineland?  We own a parcel of land there on which we hope to  build a home someday.  Since we currently own no other property, it seemed to make as much sense as anything else. 



Our land
 

 

Where is Pineland?  Pineland is located on Pine Island near Fort Meyers.  Most people have heard of the islands of Captiva and Sanibel - these are barrier islands forming Pine Island Sound.  Pine Island is a island near the mainland that is the Sound's namesake.

Pine Island and Pineland has a rich history and we feel quite connected there.

Pineland was a major center of the Calusa, the native peoples of the area.  They built a rather large 'shell mound' there that is still largely intact;  many other shells mounds in Florida have been destroyed.  The site of the mound is open to the public  http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/rrc/.  Our land is less than a mile from the mound and undoubtedly was used by Calusa - we always hope not for a burial ground!

The Calusa have a number of unique attributes:  First they were a relatively tall people - unusual in indigenous people of the Americas.  They never signed a treaty or made peace with the Europeans - they fought to the last person.  It is reputed that Ponce De Leon was fatally wounded by Calusa warriors in 1513. They also were quite the engineers - building a canal cutting across the 2 1/2 mile width of the island to make it easier to travel to the waters to the east.

Obstacles to using Pineland as a Hailing Port.  I have wanted to have a boat that hails from Pineland for many years, but Coast Guard documentation rules would have been a barrier in the past. It was the rule that your hailing port had to be either, your legal residence/mailing address or the regional Coast Guard office, which when we resided in New York would have been Cleveland, Ohio.  Luckily they changed the rules a few years ago, and now the only requirement is that it be a location with a US Zip code.  Also lucky for us, in spite of elimination of many small post offices, Pineland still has a post office and more importantly a zip code.

Lastly, why do some knowledgeable people say that our boat has never been to Pineland?  Well they are right.  Pineland is reachable by water only via the 'Wilson Cut',  a narrow rocky channel that has, at most, only 3 feet of water at low tide.  There are reports of boats drawing 2', hitting rocks in the channel.  Since we draw 4' 8",  it is very unlikely that we would ever attempt it.




Wilson Cut from Pineland
Sign says "Incoming Traffic has right of way"

On a separate note, we recently went on a 2 day sea trial and the boat performed well.  We did find one problem with our Electro Scan marine sanitation device and a control unit is currently in Ft Lauderdale being repaired.  This will likely mean that we will miss our planned departure from Twin Dolphin at the end of October by a few days - no big deal.


Tom
Currently docked Twin Dolphin Marina
Bradenton, FL