Got up early Steve said hurry up we are gonna go eat, so i got ready and we went into town and ate at McDonald’s. Walked along the beach for a while and Steve went to boat while i went shopping. Steve had to set motor timing and I needed to pick up a new bathing suit. I spent a few hours lying on the beach and then called Steve to come pick me up. The beach here is crowded and i found a spot at the back in sun applied my tanning lotion and read a book for a while. Steve came over to the shore and we went to eat lunch together and ended up listening to live music on the beach met some nice people and had a ball. The sun was hot and the water felt good. I love the beach and the ocean. After we had too much sun we went to Naughty Nellies for oysters and coconut shrimp by the water. We had a great day today and hope all our friends did too. I know its cold at home and if i could would send some sunshine your way. Thanks for following our blog and stay tuned for more!!

CAPTAINS LOG: awaiting parts for delivery, then off to Tortugas. 🙂

Last night Steve opened the motor compartment to look for water buildup under the motor. There was water and we saw the sea water pump was leaking. Steve took it apart and found out the seal was bad and the pump had broken parts that were missing in engine. Luckily Steve found the pieces after taking some more of it apart. Well we spent the day on the public transit system, one trolley, and two buses to get to the marine parts place that Steve had called earlier and given part number to and they had our parts. It took about 2-3 hours to get there with waiting on the buses and trolly at designated stops.We finally figured out where to get off the bus and boom we were right at the shop. Steve gave the guy the parts and to match up and who would have guessed that the part number was the same as the original part but it was a replaced part that was European and parts were different so we had to order parts and will wait until Friday.Steve had dinghied over to a machine shop to get a part pressed and made friends that said we could have the parts shipped to him. Luckily the guy at the parts place knows him too! Waiting on the part until Friday. We made our way back to boat slowly on bus cooked grilled chicken and rice and enjoyed a quiet evening on our floating palace. 🙂 Goodnight and stay tuned for more adventures.

CAPTAINS LOG: Always check the working parts of your boat and continuously maintain them for reasons just like this one.It would have been bad if it had broken in middle of the ocean.

Steve woke us up early this AM and started cleaning boat, so we cleaned the boat inside and out getting ready to sail to Ft Myers Beach for a few days before jumping over to The Dry Tortugas. With all the garbage out the boat clean, and the weather cold and windy we said our goodbyes to Mike, Harriet, Sonny and his wife and motored out into the GIWW. Steve saw a big manatee again as we were leaving the marina and i missed this one too.Steve had to get out his toboggan, gloves and heavy coat for a few hours until we made it to the marina area. On our way we passed Sanibel island where you can pick up tons of shells and other exciting activities. Beautiful beaches it looked like. Seeing all these places it is so great. We still haven’t found a kite shop to use with our GoPro camera. There are lots of windsurfers here but we need a smaller kite! We saw several windsurfers passing Sanibel. I remembered the bridge we came up on and had to go under, but not until after we had anchored out. We came in and found the mooring ball 29 and hooked up, this is the first time we have hooked to a mooring ball and it went smoothly. There are a lot of boats here. The further south we get the more crowded it becomes. The tortugas are not crowded (we hope). To go there we have to have all our supplies with us there is no store, no place to shower, no place to eat; just an old fort and surrounding mote. Beautiful diving and snorkeling and a lot of history, this fort held the physician as a prisoner that treated John Wilkes Booth after he broke his arm when jumping from balcony after shooting Abraham Lincoln.I think the physicians name was Moss. Ok back to the mooring field we moored at. Steve and i several years ago took a high speed water taxi to Key West where i first got sea sick, that taxi is directly across from us here. We are pretty familiar with Ft Myers and Ft Myers Beach so we know where we are going when we go out. That is nice, but we really like exploring too!

Sorry i am getting my posts up late but we have so much going on. 🙂 Sailing isn’t . We are getting ready to hit the waterways again to the Fort Myers Beach tomorrow to anchor out on a mooring ball. We have met so many good people here, Mike and Harriet are on a nice motor cruiser and they are going to travel in an RV as their next adventure! They are very intelligent and have a lot of good advice. Mike has an engineer mind so when he and Steve are talking the rest of the world doesn’t exist. lol I love to watch them talk. We have several great books and charts given to us by our wonderful boater buds. I am learning to read charts and plot a course. Steve taught me how to operate auto pilot. We took it easy for a liitle while today went and talked to our buds at the marina and went to eat a slice of pizza and ended up at Mexican restaurant and ate a burrito and a cheese quesedila. I love that little place lots of great atmosphere! The manager and the waitresses were so  nice. I will miss the atmosphere in this town, (except for the unsavory characters that stole our neighbors folding chair). Sonny was our neighbor boat and he is very nice. He told us his history of running his business from scratch. (it was his chair that was stolen). People never cease to amaze me. The boating family is great, they all take care of each other and since Steve and I are the younger in the community they really take time to watch over us and help us with anything we need. Their help has been invaluable. Well goodnight everyone more tomorrow!

CAPTAINS LOG: Always make sure you have good charts. And always be careful with your boat items when docked in a crowded area.Lock them down and lock your door.

Windy day

Captain Steve

Entering Ft Myers

Little Mallard Hen

Fort Myers Yacht Basin Marina

Fountains by the Marina

rockabilly band

Driving to Punta Gorda from Ft Myers

Woke up and had to go shopping to replace some things we needed on the boat. Steve had seen a reel at the flea market and wanted to go back and see if they had it still. They still had it and the guy thought it was broken but Steve engaged clutch on it and it worked fine. Got it for 15 dollars, great! We had a great lunch at the flea market with hot dog and fried chips and Steve had a healthy sandwich and macaroni salad. That flea market had good food. I bought a cute case for my phone until my new cover gets back from Otto box. Purchased a bag of oranges that i didnt realize were super juicy and sweet but dont get any juice on you it stains bright orange but it comes out in the wash. We also drove over to a tai kwon do dojo and met a man who had a fishing rod for sale. They were from a country near Lithuania. He gave us a lot of great fishing information. Sunday night we went to Crabby Bill’s on the water with our new friends Mike and Harriet, and our old new friends Nancy and Rick. We had a great time and we stopped at an outside bar by the street and just sat and talked about everything, LOL. We slowly walked back to our “gypsy” boat loaded to the gills with everything you could need and extra parts. Oh and i call it Snap On because we have half their tools on board. Locked up securely. Got into the car we rented and headed to Walmart for more provisions and plenty of water. We ate at a “Mexican” resturaunt, let me put it this way we didnt eat our leftovers and that is saying something. It used to be a steak house and they did not make any money but went to attempting to make mexican food without spanish cooks. We made our way back to the Thingamajig and unloaded all our supplies put them away and dropped our weary bodies into bed.  Fort Myers is very pretty where we are but it has a high theft rate. We have to lock up everything when we leave the boat. Our neighbor advised us that is best. Stay tuned for more adventures of Captain Steve and Denise (First Mate) 🙂

Flea market Saturday!!  Up early and on to the flea market.Steve and I had a great time going through all the good stuff. This flea market is huge like the one in Pinellas Park. I think the Wagon wheel is bigger though. I found out that flea market prices are higher down here. Found a fishing gear shop with good prices. A lot of commercial stuff. some great artwork, great crafts and lots of just other neat junk. We spent a lot of time there and enjoyed it. Spent the rest of the evening with friends on the dock and got ready to do the street music festival they have on Friday nights. Lots of great music, food, and friendly people.(mostly). We had a slice of pizza at a great little pizza place and listened to a great band close by that. These activities took up our complete day. Home to bed for some rest.

Friday in Ft Myers. Woke up today to Steve saying lets go check out Punta Gorda Marinas! We had rented a car last night and they delivered it this AM for us. A Chevrolet Aveo i think no frills no smooth ride. We drove to a restaurant called the Farmers Market. They had a fabulous country breakfast. but had trouble understanding a glass of milk for breakfast. The waitresses were very nice and service and quantity of food was great! Time to head across the bridge to Punta Gorda. and find a good marina to leave our boat at when we get through with our awesome adventure. We found a marina before we got to the marina we had found online and really liked it! It was mostly sailboats and we can run up a canal where they will lift it out of the water and put it in dry dock on stands. We can work on it and have the bottom done if it needs it. Looking around we found a CSY, and an Island trader by Formosa. Nice boats. We were walking toward the car and met a great couple who own a 424 Pearson sailboat they are selling in several months and not sailing anymore. We got to go aboard and see the boat and loved it. They have traveled thousands of  miles and been in rough seas and we loved hearing of their many adventures. They have been to Alaska in their sailboat and other cold beautiful and in hot and beautiful climates. We need a larger boat for blue water sailing mainly due to needing more room and storage.Boy there is so much you need if you are going to be offshore for a while. Making friends in the boating world is great. We spent a lot of time at that marina and finally went to check out the other marina. We didnt like, just didnt feel we would want to leave our boat there. We traveled to the Dive shop and bought some diving equipment and found and awesome store called Marine trader that has everything a sailor will ever need! Like a flea market. We loved it.  We traveled back to the boat and walked around town to see the sights. The front has made it cold and windy but that doesn’t slow the snowbirds down here in Ft Myers the building across from us has a bar on the top and the party goes on til late. we know we here the beat until they close, 🙂 No problem we can still sleep thru it.  Party on party people!  There is some good food in this town, and we are trying as many as we can.

another road on Captiva Island

Island house isolated

Another island road, nice huh?

Another island picture.

This is an old fishing hut.

Another view of the fishing hut

We woke up and I cooked Steve bacon and eggs for breakfast. After that we got ready and drove our dinghy over to Captiva Island and rented a golf cart to tour the Island. We tied up our dinghy at the dock in front of the restaurant and went in to ask if that was OK we would be back later to eat. Well we took off on our golf cart because the only roads on the island are golf cart trails. Cars are not allowed on this island. Only golf carts. The island is beautiful and there are several houses for sale and lots of rentals. I am attaching pictures so you can see how neat it is. We walked on the beach and had a ball riding the golf cart around. We stopped at the little activity shop and the small market during our self guided tour and made sure we hit every road there was on the island. Well we took golf cart back sat down to eat and decided to go  back to market to get some cokes and we went to the club house bar and bought two for one appetizers for 12 bucks and took them back to boat with us. They were great and we got a bargain the prices on the menu were horrible! A few of the restaurants were private so only residents and guests could eat there. We left there and enjoyed our feast back at the boat. and i went to work on the blog, Will write more later!

Island scene

Cayo Costa, Florida

Cayo Costa sun setting

First thing in AM we left Venice fast.(thats saying a lot for a sailboat). No thanks to much thin water for us. Leaving Venice we encountered more horrible moter boat people and one sheriff who rocked us worst of all. I loved the dolphins they came right up to the

Loving the beach!

side of the boat where i was sitting. Beautiful animals! So curious. The scenery down the GIWW was pretty, plenty of beautiful houses and condos. The bridge tenders were very nice although we got stuck temporarily about 12 times on our way. I love the way people come right by and dont even offer help. The sailboat captain came by and we said we were stuck he replied, “the tide will be up later” and continued on his way. We looked at our map and decided to stop at Cayo Costa island by North Captiva Island. We got anchored well jumped off the boat in the dinghy and headed to shore. It is a state island so it was plenty of isolation and no people! Calm and peaceful just us and the water, starfish, and other beach animals. We went snorkeling and swimming and stayed to watch the sunset. I am attaching pics. Had a wonderful day headed back to boat took a hot shower and hit the hay!

Steve studying charts for gulf crossing to Sarasota.

Sarasota Anchorage

nice sunset 🙂

looks like a nuclear bomb!

Another sunset pic.

Rudely awakened in by  the marina personnel stating “Hey anyone awake on board?” and rapping loudly on the side of the boat. Steve jumped up and i heard the guy say we were too close to their mooring field and we had an hour to leave before the Marine police arrived. Wow Sarasota we are out of here! Could it have been my memory foam and rug hanging over the side to dry that made our boat too unsightly to be in the marina? LOL No they went to the sailboat next to us and stated the same thing. It is allowable to anchor there but they thought we were too close and they dont get paid for anchorages not on a mooring ball. It costs 20 dollars a night to hook on to a mooring ball and 24.50 per ft to stay in their marina. No thanks we are on our way to Venice. It is very pretty scenery down the waterway and we loved it. Getting to Venice we attempted to anchor out with the help of a yacht club member who directed us to a spot. It was shallow we got stuck going into the North side anchorages and barely made it into the south side anchorages (which if we had read our skipper Bob manual it would have said not to anchor on southside due to tides. Well Steve and i got anchored out and went into town to mail our auto pilot wheel drive to Raymarine. We dinghied over to the dock tied up and checked out “bathrooms” they were public park restrooms small no shower. We walked 2 or 3 miles to post office through a neat community and tried to find a box for our part. Wouldn’t you know it they have a box too small and the next one up was too big. USPS. We waited on a call from the person at Raymarine but had to go ahead and send the package anyway it was getting late. Steve asked me if i had seen the Quilt Basket on the way in and took me over to it on the way back. It was a small shop with some great fabrics on the town square. Well after that we walked down to city hall to find out about some activities in the area and see if they had scuba tours. That was the closest thing to a welcome center in Venice. Did not find anything and walked on to the beach and a squirrel started to stalk us i think he thinks we has food. They are so tame there. At the beach we found some lifeguards who told us of a scuba boat. The beach with the sharks teeth was 2-3 miles away. we saw a ton of dead fish and learned it was the red tide. It is phytoplankton the takes on a red or green/brown color in ocean and causes a high  morbidity in some marine animals esp fish and causes humans allergy like effects. We walked the beach back to a park that had a place to wash our feet off from the beach and we took pictures by a wooden dolphin. Talked to a couple fisherman at the park and watched a sailboat come by us. NICE! We walked over to crows nest marina and got rates for a week, then decided to head back to boat for tuna and pickles. Stopped at the dock to talk to a man with a boat from the 70S called Lone Wolf. Very nice sailboat ketch he is also headed to keys and bahamas, maybe we will see him there. At the boat we discovered we could not move the boat due to getting stuck in every direction and slammed into something underwater with our keel. :-(( We had to wait until high tide to get out and that was at 1:45 AM. so we woke up and got our boat back into channel and went back to sleep.