Exploring the West Central Florida Coast

Having established a date to sail with Larry and Christina, we set out to explore as we sailed back to meet them in Ft. Myers on May 8th.  We sailed out of Davis Island Yacht Club's marina into upper Tampa Bay.  We sailed the length of the upper bay to Boca Ciega Bay at the northeast end of the Sunshine Bridge Causeway and anchored.  In the middle of the night the winds shifted and came from the south.  Our anchorage became rolly.   In the morning, we lifted anchor and headed back to the Davis Island Yacht Club to find shelter from the waves.  When we got near, we saw the masts of the docked boats rocking and rolling.  We decided that we didn't need to pay for a rocking night(s?) at a dock.  We pulled out and headed to the far west side of the north bay to see if the seas there were less.  They were indeed less, but not small enough for our liking.   As we sailed down the bay again the winds increased and shifted to the west southwest, the direction we wished to go.  We were taking spray over the bow and the dodger and small craft were advised to seek shelter.  I decided to head to St. Petersburg and put into the Harborage Marina for shelter.  After tying to the dock we washed the boat and filled with fresh water.  We set out the next day and sailed to our favorite anchorage near de Soto point.  We headed out the next day, deciding to use Passage Key Inlet again and tried to sail south, but the wind was too light.  We motored into Long Boat Key Inlet several hours later (after another lovebug encounter), had the bridge opened for us and then motored the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway into Sarasota Bay.  We anchored off the Eastern shore for the night.  The next day, we moved to an anchorage off City Island and spent a few days exploring Sarasota.  One pays $2 at O'Leary's Watersports and Grill and then may tie up and lock one's dinghy to a cable or palm tree there.

 We did that for two days and then decided to eat lunch there and not pay the fee.

The sights within Bayfront Park are varied and entertaining.  Remember, clicking on the photos will enlarge them for easier viewing.

There were many banners like this throughout the park

We left Sarasota and motored the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GICW) arriving in Venice a few hours later.  We took a right turn and exited Venice Inlet into the Gulf and continued to Boca Grande Inlet, anchoring in Pelican Bay for the night.  The next day found us in the Ft. Myers Beach mooring field again.

On May 8th, Larry and Christina arrived at Doc Ford's Restaurant's dock and I took them aboard our dinghy and out to Jupiter's Smile.  We dropped the mooring ball and motored north on the GICW.  Once we cleared the section known as "The Miserable Mile" the wind picked up and even though we were near our planned anchorage, we elected to raise sails and play for a while in the breeze.  We anchored and Barbie cooked up a great dinner that we enjoyed in the cockpit just before the sunset.  The next day we were forced again to motor and we pulled in to Pelican Bay a little after three.  We have now visited this anchorage three times and like it very much.  We dinghied to shore and took the shuttle across Cayo Costa to the beach.  We beach combed a little, walked back to the dock and dinghied back for dinner aboard.  As had we motored over the previous days Christina was reading and grading her students' final exams so this was not an entirely carefree trip for her.  We left Pelican Bay the next morning and motored into the Gulf through Boca Grande and headed south, back towards Ft. Myers Beach.  We rounded Cayo Costa, Captiva Island and Sanibel Island.  When we got just south of Sanibel the wind began to pick up, we turned off the engine and we sailed with Larry at the helm all the way into Matanzas Pass, the Estero River, under the Ft. Myers Beach Bridge and up to a mooring ball.  

Christina was able to connect to the University's computer using our Internet card and she entered her final grades for her students while sitting in our cockpit.  Nice office!  I thought it was a very pleasant two and a half days on the water with them aboard and they were able to experience a little of what it is like to live on the boat.  

The next day, we realized that a boat we were near in the mooring field was S/V Java Moon.  We had met Skip in San Andres, Colombia and again in Providencia in January, 2010.  We met again and I drove us all in the dinghy for dinner at Bonita Bills and exchanged tales.  Fortunately, we got to finish dinner and our beer, but, unfortunately, dark clouds rolled in and the wind rose alarmingly.  

We rushed for the dinghy without busing our tables and headed back to the boats.  As we approached Java Moon to drop off Skip we all noticed that another sailboat was scooting through the mooring field with the mooring ball still attached.  The boat was loose, the mooring line having broken, and its crew was on a neighboring boat.  The boat missed Jupiter's Smile by a little (enough) and the skipper raced his dinghy to board and halt the boat just in time to prevent it from grounding on the far side of the mooring field.  Life on the water is seldom boring.  We spent some more time visiting the beach and while on the Internet discovered that there was an AKC dog show coming to North Ft. Myers.  To get to the show we decided to rent a motor scooter, but we would need to leave early in the morning before the rental office opened at 9.  The owner said that we could pick up the scooter around 4PM and keep it over-night and return it before 4PM the next day for just the 9-4 rental fee.  We did just that and since it isn't dark until around 8PM, we took the scooter for a whirl across the causeway to Sanibel Island to comb the beach and then went up to the Tween Waters Inn on Captiva Island for dinner.  We returned to the marina in twilight, well windblown and tired.  The next day we travelled to the dog show.  The trip took a little more than an hour along roads that had a 55 mph speed limit.  The scooter sometimes hit 45 mph with the two of us aboard.  We watched all three Borzoi compete and decided that we would come back and see the Hound Group competition after lunch.  The Best of Breed Borzoi didn't earn a placement, but a very nice Saluki won Group 1.  The Borzoi owners and the Saluki owner all knew people we knew and it was fun to "talk dogs" again after so many years.  The scooter ride back was against the wind and the machine struggled to maintain 40 mph all the way.  I dropped Barbie off and then dropped the scooter off, walking the three blocks back to the marina.  That day was certainly a change of pace for us.

We dropped the mooring ball and motored almost the whole way back to Pelican Bay for visit number four.  This time we stayed several days.  We dinghied over to Cabbage Key and had dinner at the Cabbage Key Inn where supposedly they make the best hamburger on the Florida West Coast.  Barbie thought it couldn't compare to the much less expensive burger at Bonita Bill's.  I haven't had either burger (or any burger for years) so I can't say.

We left Pelican Bay and headed out Boca Grande Pass, navigated the Swash and hoisted sails headed toward Sarasota.  We called the Sarasota Yacht Club, the organization that places the buoys in Big Sarasota Pass to learn about the status of the inlet.  It is reported to be difficult to navigate without "local knowledge" so I was going to be sure to get the most up to date information about this pass.  I also called Towboat US and was assured that if I followed the channel markers, I would be fine...and we were.  We passed under the Ringling Brothers Bridge and anchored near a city boat launching facility so that we could access the Publix grocery store across the street in the morning.  We did that next morning and after storing our provisions got underway, under sail, in Sarasota Bay headed north.  Barbie did a great job of piloting us while I trimmed sails to navigate the GICW to a popular anchorage at the north end of Longboat Key.  That evening, we went ashore for a nice dinner and then walked to the beach to burn some of it off.  We left the next morning, motoring up the GICW, opening the Cortez and Anna Maria Bridges and entered the lower part of Tampa Bay.  We turned north and anchored just off what is called Passage Key.  No part of the Key was above water but we waded across what amounted to a sandbar with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and Tampa Bay on the other about a mile from any other piece of land.  We soon grew tired of that novelty and proceeded north to Egmont Key.  We anchored and saw signs that told that this was a bird sanctuary and that the beach was closed.  We didn't leave however.  We planned to stay through the night anchored right where we were.  We thought it would be fine to see the shore birds returning to their roosts and to watch the sunset over the island.  We could move the next day to the north to explore the beach and the Key where landing ashore was permitted.  The winds would shift from a westerly to an easterly direction after midnight, but the forecast was for continued 5 - 10 knot wind speeds (just enough to ventilate the interior of the boat.)  We would be in the lee of the shore until midnight and then against a lee shore after that.  The shore to windward (in the lee of the shore) is good.  The land is protecting us from the wind and waves.  A windward shore is good.  A lee shore is not good.  The wind is blowing the boat toward the land.   If an anchor drags the boat ends up on the beach. But, the winds had been forecasted to be light.  Barb was still awake, reading at midnight, when the wind shifted almost on queue - but it blew at 20 knots!  An instrument alarm woke me up and I still had my eyes closed as I ran to check it and bumped into Barb as she was already checking the instrument herself.

"Fetch" is the nautical term for the distance on the water over which the wind travels.  The greater the fetch the more distance waves have to gather the energy of the wind and build on themselves.  The energy in the wind (anything, actually) increases with the square of its velocity.  Double the wind velocity and it has four times the energy.  Wind blowing 20 knots has 16 times more energy than wind blowing 5 knots.  Before the wind shift, the fetch was a matter of yards.  After the wind shifted, the fetch was nearly ten miles.  All that meant we were wakened by waves building from nothing to three feet rather suddenly and rudely.  The anchor was holding, but we were hobby horsing as the wind was howling in the wind generator (the only happy piece of equipment on the boat at the moment.  We were generating electricity from indirect solar (i.e. wind) power even though it was midnight.)  Barb went gamely to the bow and as I motored slowly forward, we began retrieving the anchor to move to a windward shore.  She worked the windlass flawlessly and we were on our way, crashing into the waves.  I considered going to the lee side of Fort De Soto,  just north of our position but the chart shows some shallow water near there and it was low tide now.  Did I mention that it was midnight?  It was not the best time to try to anchor in a place one had never visited before.  Although we were very familiar with it, I didn't like the idea of navigating the Manatee River to the southeast, toward Palmetto and Bradenton, because the dredged channel is narrow and it was low tide.  It was also midnight.  Once anchored there, there would still be a fair amount of fetch so the effort would not be greatly rewarded. We ended up crossing the lower bay, eastward, toward the Southwest end of the Sunshine Bridge Causeway and anchored in calm water about a quarter mile from the shore at position 27.56175,-82.63555 at 2 am,  just as the last quarter moon was rising in a clear, starry sky.  The wind was still blowing about 17 knots, but we were protected from the waves (the water was almost calm) due to only a quarter mile of fetch.  We shut down the boat, put Jupiter's Smile to sleep and we as well, were soon sound asleep - again.

Sleeping on a boat is different from sleeping on land.  But sleep we did and got a late start the next day.  Barbie steered close to the wind and I trimmed sails as we entered the Manatee River and pulled into our old anchorage in the Manatee River just off de Soto point.


The next day, we returned to Egmont Key anchoring off the beach where we could land the dinghy and explored the beach, the ruins of the fort built in the late 1800's and the lighthouse.  As we left we sailed near Fort Dodge and then crossed the Bay again to anchor in the Manatee River.  We had called Snead Island Boat Yard and while they would be closed on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, they said we could come in early to prepare our boat for the June 1st haul out.  We decided that we didn't need to be "boating" on Memorial Day Weekend with the hoards of local boaters and that the luxury of being at a dock, plugged into shore power providing air conditioning and the lure of "land shower" facilities was all we needed to bring us into the boat yard early.  Our cruising for the early part of 2011 had come to an end, but our work was not done.