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

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