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!