Daylight Savings Time had us all messed up. We still got up at 6:00 o'clock as usual, but it took longer to get light out. We departed this beautiful cove at 7:30 a.m. with our navigational lights on. We wanted to get started as soon as possible. The reason being that we were told yesterday evening that the mooring field in Fort Myers Beach was full. If that were true, we were going to have to look at other options, like anchoring out or going to Moss Marina where we have some friends. With that, we wanted to be in at slack tide because it really rips through the marina. Last night we looked up slack tide being at about 10:00 a.m. Now was that already accounting for Daylight Savings Time or not?
Once we were out on the Caloosahatchee River we were again exclaiming how wonderful that anchorage was. It was quite breezy, coming out of the south, but you would never have guessed it in our little overnight cove.
About the time we were ready to turn onto the main channel, we noticed a boat coming. It was "Thanks Dad". So funny how you run into some people over and over. We said our see you laters once again on the VHF.
When we entered the Gulf, the waves were about two foot on the bow. Still not as rough as coming into Lake Okeechobee the other day. Thankfully it was not too long of a ride out there and into Matanzas Pass to Fort Myers Beach. About the time we came around the bend Richard from "Finally" was texting to ask where we were. He said he didn't recognize our boat from the front. Ha! Ha! Linda on "Q's End" was at the end of the docks waving to us as we passed by Moss Marina. We decided to cruise through the mooring field and see if we could find an empty mooring ball first. Luckily we found number 44 and a couple others were empty also. We're going to keep an eye on them for Bill and Patty aboard "Conched Out Too" for their arrival on Tuesday.
Barely tied onto the mooring ball, we got the dinghy down from it's old fashioned way, including hoisting the 110 pound motor down. It went well. We headed off to check in. Then Jill and Richard picked us up in their truck and we headed off to meet Cindy and Jeff from "Gabrielle" for lunch at Duffy's. They have actually sold their sailboat and are now land cruisers in their RV. They are staying in a State Park in Estero. They actually came through Murphy late summer last year to visit us.
I first stated that this building could not be Duffy's, that it must be the golf course club house because it was too fancy looking from the outside, but it was. This one was on a nice setting and actually was where you checked in for golf. We had a great time and lots of laughs during lunch, then we moved on to check out Cindy and Jeff's RV. Jill and Richard plan to be land cruisers too in the near future so they wanted to get all the tips, tricks and pointers from Cindy and Jeff since they want to get an RV very similar to theirs. More laughs and then we had to get going. Jill and Richard's dog Molly was on board their boat alone, and who knows how long it would take to get back across the bridge to the beach, which is usually a parking lot, but this was the last day of the Shrimp Festival too.
On our way back, we got a text from our friend Bob Bishop aboard "Miss NanSea". Nancy was back on the boat from the hospital after her stroke last week. Thank you for prayers. It seems just her vision was affected. We so wish that news could have come yesterday when we were so close to them. To go back and visit now would require the use of someone's vehicle which would not be an issue, it's that traffic as it is still Spring Break.
After our lunch outing we came back towards the boat, stopping at Salty Sams for some ice to load into the cooler. About that time, Dave from Holiday Inn Harborside in Indian Rocks Beach called to tell us we could have a slip there for a month starting Saturday, March 19. Funny how things work out. While in the truck on the way back I called Marker 1 Marina in Dunedin to give them our credit card information to hold a reservation there. The lady handling that was not in so I was asked to call back tomorrow. So we will leave here on Wednesday to get up there. We plan to enjoy our granddaughter Abbie during her Spring Break next week.
Our evening ended with a visit with Linda and Tom from "Q's End" along with Jill and Richard for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment