Had my sewing machine out today(sailrite LSZ1 that i highly recommend to my boating sewing women and men). While sewing my window cover i noticed Steve not acting like he felt good and he said he thinks he has a kidney stone, a few minutes later he looked up from the galley and said its time to go! That means get going to the ER i am going to be sick very soon. So we went to the dinghy dock called a Lyft (that couldn’t understand English and went the wrong direction) cancelled it and called another one that was there in 10 minutes while Steve is throwing up in a bag waiting. Luckily this driver was local and said i know where to go to the closest best hospital, and hit the gas and got us there in 5 min. It was a beautiful hospital with a gorgeous children’s wing a piano player in the lobby and unending excellent customer service. We didn’t have to worry though Steve’s nausea ran everyone out of the ER waiting room so they came and got him quick after the Triage.. The nurses and the doctor were so nice and immediately got his xrays and pain meds. He was sleeping soundly in just a few minutes. Awoke to no pain and feeling much better. Dr said it was a 6mm stone so they didn’t do any invasive treatments, it will have to pass. We made it back home by 8 and Barry (thank goodness for friends) got us back to the boat and a restful night for Steve while i finished my window cover. so that was our exciting day today,lol. Stay tuned for more mini adventures with Big Moose and Caretta!

SO today i wanted to go to JoAnns and buy some 2 inch hooks for my duffel bag i am making on the boat. I had 1 inch but no 1.5 or two inch hardware for bags. Andrea and i went to the restaurant by the boats and called a Lyft to go over to the Joann store about 15-20 minutes away from the mooring field. I love fabric stores and Andrea just goes with me and we check out other stores also. I found a few of the items i needed including the clear vinyl to make a clear front window cover with sailrite borders and snaps to fit on the front window when it is raining. Andrea and I also stopped at a “sports bar” that was in the parking of the little mini strip mall we were at. It was nice just to have some girl time and talk about stuff that is just meaningless stuff (girl talk). They had some really good food too, grouper bites, and pork bbq mac and cheese. MMmm After our good meal we went back to the restaurant to be picked up by our captains. It felt good to ride through Ft Myers and see all the places i drove my Jeep when i worked down here. Good times in Ft Myers.

No need for a captains log when we are at anchor so stay tuned.

JJ and Patty went with us to MOMs and they had to get home and take care of their doggies. Andrea and I went shopping around town and shopped around the beachfront shops to see what they had. Walking through the waterfront area there were some cool places to eat and a “DAIRY QUEEN” WHOO HOO, so you know we stopped and bought a blizzzard brr it was so good! It was mint /Oreo blizzard. A local shop caught our eye and we went to investigate. Inside we found some really cool and pretty clothes i bought a nice dress and found a shirt on the clearance rack. I have no dresses on the boat so this will be nice to have if we go out and eat somewhere nice(unless i am riding the bike). haha A walk on the pier showed us the beach was packed with tons of people and boats anchored right off the beach. Plenty of fisherman on the pier trying their luck, although i didnt see too many fish in their buckets or on stringers. The sun was shining all the restaurants on the beach were packed full and the tourist activities were at full capacity today. Several of the shops on the way to the beach had so much cool stuff. We stopped in one and i loved the bathing suits but i hated the prices lol. The other stores had so much junk that i do not need! Same old stuff made in China cheap cheap cheap. We found some cool restaurants and several awesome locally owned stores that had some real cool stuff! It is so much fun to just ramble through all the stores and find all those hidden treasures. Fort Myers Beach has a lot to offer and have met really great people here. (except for the suzuki dealership boat repair shops). We met Steve and Barry and ate at Nervous Nellies, not impressed with the food but the atmosphere is great! Neat fish painted all over the walls, cool murals on the walls and a neat upstairs balcony to eat on. Although you can eat inside too. Good music great atmosphere makes up for average food! After the meal it was the end of the day and we headed back to the boat for a good nights rest. Stay tuned for more sailing adventures.

Getting the boat ready for company today! JJ, Patty, Tasha,and Bob are coming to the boat and to eat out with us. Got the boat ready and went to get Patty and JJ at the dock. It looked like rain but we made it to Doc Fords to eat with everyone but it came a downpour while we were there. We had a great time with everyone great food and good good times. Well…since it was raining Tasha and bob didnt come to the boat, but JJ and Patty stayed all night with us. OH and i forgot our dinghy motor died on the way back to the boat and would not restart so JJ and Steve spent the evening trying to fix it to no avail.( Barry and Andrea towed us back to the boat.) It was a great day any day we get to see our awesome friends!!

Woke up and decided to eat breakfast at MOMs, it is a restaurant started in Atlanta by a lady and she sold it to regroup in Florida(a much safer area). She had the best breakfast we have eaten in a long long time! So try MOMS when you are in ft Myers Florida. Afterwards we rode around just looking and found a little craft fair with some cool stuff, and a neat place for shirts called Tuna something. Went over the main bridge that connects ft myers to ft myers beach, in search of a mariners trading post (was mainly new stuff when we got there). BUT right next to it was an alterations shop and they let me see them work with some of my favorite vintage singers and juki as well as Pfaff. I was in heaven of course! We traveled a really cool thrift store and bought another laundry bag for my towels when i have to go to laundromat. Stopped at the seven eleven for an icee and onto the gift shop. Prices were too high for junk clothes so no sale lol. After traversing the several miles we went and Steve having to push his dead electric bike up the bridge we locked them up at the dock and went to the Matanzas Restaurant for dinner. It started to rain and our waitress already had a table inside for us. So while we were outside a pair of doves flew under a table and the lady sitting there fell backwards trying to shoo them away! Steve and i helped her up and she was so grateful she bought us a drink when we all went inside. Good people good people. Well another day gone so i am out. Good night!

Arrived in Ft Myers mooring field this morning around 9AM grabbed ball #2 and called in to the office to confirm it. When we first arrived before we got our keys we had a nice neighbor tell us all about the area and recommended a cool restaurant near us on the water that served a good breakfast. So we went there and ate breakfast and saw him sitting there at the bar waiting on his breakfast.After breakfast I got my clothes ready to wash since we had been in the DT for 2 weeks we needed clean clothes. When we went in we received our shower keys and laundry room key. I loved the laundry room(although it did get hot), and you paid for the washer and dryers with an app you add money to. Andrea was with me as well and we had fun meeting some other sailors from the mooring field. After taking our laundry back and hanging out on the boat for a while we all decided to eat at a restaurant called Doc Fords on the water right by our breakfast place. The food was GREAT and the unique building and atmosphere was amazing. Another great day comes to an end. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Leaving Dry Tortugas today sad but happy to be headed north again and toward home. Left at 10 AM and arrived in Ft Myers April 28 2022 at around 8:30 AM grabbed a mooring ball and settled in. On the way to Ft Myers we had a great sail and a lot of motoring but we are good with that too. The seas were calm and we were sailing a close hauled / pinched course. It was a calm beautiful sunset no issue sail and it was beautiful that night. On my watch i saw the gorgeous bioluminescence glowing blue and spreading out with each wave off the hull like the stuff that flies off the tall grass when run through a field. Stars so bright and clear you can almost touch them. Moon smiling at us from the starry skies, can you tell i was loving it! hahaha

Captains Log: calm seas with light north winds.

We were going to the WINDJAMMER WRECK today but the wind picked up making it impossible to get to it. So we took the day to get prepared for our 21 hour crossing to Ft Myers from the Dry Tortugas. Cleaned the boat thoroughly reorganized for rough seas, just in case! Took one more tour of the fort and surrounding areas, climbed to the top for one last panoramic view of the ocean surrounding us, checked the weather forecast, did a remake of an old photo from 2012 on the chain bench, and took a couple of cannon pics. I will miss this place it is so peaceful in the evening when all the tourists have gone. Well i am ready to head North so lets get some rest and get ready to sail!

Up early to go snorkeling at Little Africa again because there was so much to see there and we didnt get to all of it. So as usual it was like riding a rollercoaster to the coral reefs yahoo!! We found the spot to anchor and Steve had to get out to set the anchor correctly so we would not drift. He was about 30 yards from me and i looked behind me and saw a large shark with a wide head but no nurse shark tail. I thought surely that is not a bull shark?! But i yelled out shark to Barry Andrea and Steve. It was about 7-8 ft i thought because it reached from coral reef to the next coral reef. Steve almost swallowed his snorkel when he came up and heard shark. Jaws disappeared into the coral reefs and we did not see it in the coral reefs as we snorkeled. Large schools of barracuda, a cool hogfish was in the coral,and as we swam along we saw so many pretty blue tangs and blue chromis,these fish are so blue they shine neon blue underwater. I am going to post a picture of the fish we saw while in the reefs. At times you would have to suck it in to prevent touching the coral with my fins. There was so much brain coral growing everywhere and it looked like huge round brains sitting on the ocean floor and little round brains all over old metal pieces in the ocean growing on coral reefs rocks etc. WE chased fish and videoed so many fish, it was just like being in an aquarium. We made it back to the beach where we had left our chairs and lunch and sat and enjoyed a great lunch with Barry and Andrea and once again we snorkeled the little troughs and ledges in front of the beach. We had been in the water for about an hour or so and i was about 15 ft behind Steve when i heard it yelling from under the water i poked my head up and saw him moving backward toward the beach at a high rate of speed yelling shark shark! I put my head back in and didnt see anything but i got out of the water. Steve showed me a video of a bullshark not 3-5 feet from him, It was following him through the water.

Captains log: When it gets quiet underwater and all the fish disappear look behind you!

Allright today we are headed to the Bird Key Wreck to see what we can see. Winds are still a little high and getting anchored is a chore, i go up 10 ft the wind pushes me back 15 lol. Finally got a decent hold for the dinghy and got on our gear to snorkel this wreck. Going under the surface i noticed a big blob like a coral head but Steve pointed and said it was the propeller ( in sign language for snorkelers haha), overgrown with all kinds of sea plants, barnacles and overrun with fish it was so cool to see that huge prop. The wreck had been presumably carrying bricks for Fort Jefferson ran into rough weather and wrecked on the shoal or reef in that area in the late 1800s. We could see the bow and the 6 ft tall propeller , the engine and all other parts were covered in coral almost to the point you could not tell what they were. There were 3 big grouper running in and out of the wreckage, black grouper and a smaller goliath grouper(smaller than100 pounds i mean). What a great day for checking out a wreck and enjoying the great company of Barry and Andrea. We took a bumpy ride back to the boat after our crazy adventure at bird key wreck. The other sailboaters and boaters look at us like “what?” they went out in that?”. Yep that would be us…..