Still Hanging on the Caloosahatchee River

It is now Friday and the reconditioned diesel injectors are being installed on Norm's boat, Tidehiker. We have a friend who can fix anything on boats in Stuart and, if the problem persists, Norm will ask for his help when we get there. We hope to leave Franklin Lock on the Okeechobee Waterway tomorrow morning, Saturday, and make our way east to Clewiston on the SW Shore of Lake Okeechobee. The journey to Stuart will take 2 overnight stops, so we hope to be there on Monday.

In the meantime, we are really enjoying our time here. Our RV neighbors, John and Nell, were so kind to lend us their car on Wednesday and we did some more provisioning. Rick and I bought wetsuits because we've been told that we will need them to snorkel in the Bahamas this time of year because of the water temperature.

We have started looking at the Bahamas charts and are getting psyched about going. The general plan is to head back to Stuart, then south again to Key Biscayne, and wait there for a weather window to cross to Bimini. From there we plan to make our way SE to Chub Cay, then across the Tongue of the Ocean to New Providence Island and Nassau. From there it's a relatively lazy cruise down the Exuma chain.

The weather has been beautiful all week, finally Florida weather! Rick captured this amazing shot of the moon from the back of the boat. We had hoped to see the shuttle launch but it has been delayed until Sunday. If we are lucky, we may see it along the way.

There is a very, very small island near our boat where the most amazing number of birds roost every night. They vie for space as they land and there is a lot of squaking going on in the evening. What a great place this is!

Yesterday Norm and Vicki took down their kayaks and went exploring. Lynnie gave it a go in Vicki's kayak when they came back. It was lots of fun.

Here are a couple of videos (click on the "Play" arrow) of Lynnie trying to get off the kayak. It isn't as easy as you might expect and pretty funny to watch. The video of Norm getting back on 'the big boat' shows how it should be done! Nice work, Norm. More later as we get into Lake Okeechobee and on to Stuart.

Hanging out on the Caloosahatchee River

We left the anchorage on Thursday morning, 3/5, making our way past Fort Myers and into the Caloosahatchee River. This river ends at Lake Okeechobee, in the middle of Florida, and then the St. Lucie Canal on the west side of the river takes traffic out to Stuart, FL on the east coast. It is a man made canal which provides a shortcut for vessels. This trip is about 152 miles vs. the 350 miles it would take to go back down around the southern part of Florida and through the Keys to the east coast. There are 5 locks to traverse and 24 bridges to get under, luckily, most of them we can get under without having to wait for an opening.

Friends had told us of a National Park after the first lock that had 8 slips for boats at a very reasonable price ($24/night) We went through the first lock and turned to port into the little body of water where the slips were. There are numerous large RV's camping here. It is a beautiful little park which is very well maintained. Our plan was to stop for 2 nights. We needed a day off to clean the boats and do other chores.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to start making our way the 51 miles to the second stop. Norm, on our buddy boat Tidehiker, found that he had a problem with one of his engines so we stayed put and Rick and Norm tried to diagnose the problem. Unfortunately, it was Saturday and we couldn't get a mechanic out to help. On Monday a mechanic came out and stayed for several hours on Norm's boat working on the problem. It turned out that fixing the problem required the removal and renovation of all his diesel injectors in both engines. The good news is that it happened here vs. in the Bahamas. The mechanic will be back with the cleaned injectors on Friday or Saturday so we are here for the duration.

But what a place to be stuck!! We met a lovely couple, John and Nell, from Indiana who have been so nice to us. Nell took Vicki and I to the grocery store on Saturday and they lent us their car to go have dinner on Sunday night! Last night Vicki had us all over to Tidehiker for dinner and it was great fun to get to know Nell and John better. We couldn't be in a better place. Below is Nell, John, Rick, Vicki and Lynnie. What a great time we had.

Captain Rick enjoying the down time. Our view from the back deck.


Captain Norm enjoying a beautiful day in his new kayak. Forget about all those engine troubles!

So, since we have 4 or 5 more days here, and except for the stress of Norm's engines, we are really enjoying the down time. We are taking walks, reading books, catching up on the to-do list, etc. If we leave on Saturday or Sunday we will be in Stuart, on the east coast, on Monday or Tuesday. Here is a picture of Nell and John's RV and one of Tide Hiker and Rickshaw in the slips.

Tomorrow night the space shuttle is going to have a launch so we hope to get a picture of it. More tomorrow!

DeFever Rendezvous, Useppa Island, FL

We arrived at the anchorage outside of Useppa Island last Thursday. Useppa Island is a beautiful little island, north of Fort Myers, and you can only get there by boat. The rendezvous started on Friday so we anchored out with other DeFever boats until we could get in our slip at the marina on Friday. It was very fun to see all the other boats and to see friends that we haven't seen for a while. We attended seminars on Saturday morning then in the afternoon we were able to get on other boats to see how they are outfitted. Many of them are pretty amazing.The island has a beautiful walking trail through lush vegetation. There were many different kinds of orchids living in the trees.

This little beach was on the other side of the island. It was beautiful but no one was taking advantage of it because of the chilly weather. This white Ibis was posing for Rick!

Below, a most interesting banyon tree grew on both sides of the walkway.

On Sunday we took the water ferry over to another very small island called Cabbage Key, for the Sunday activities. The restaurant on Cabbage Key is where Jimmy Buffett wrote 'Cheesburger in Paradise'! A very strong cold front came through on Sunday morning and brought very high winds and the temperature dropped noticeably. Of course, with the winds that high we kept checking the lines all night long so neither of us got much sleep.

This is the restaurant in Cabbage Key. As you can see, it is plastered with $1 bills, each with a name written on it. The dinner was the last official get together and we all had a blast.



We were planning on leaving Monday but it was still very cold and the winds had not died down much. We heard that with the wind chill factor it was going to be 39 degrees so we decided to take advantage of the shore power at the marina and stay one more night. We were nice and toasty!

Tuesday morning we followed other DeFever boats into a protected anchorage across the waterway from Useppa Island. We went over to Tidehiker for drinks and appetizers last night, as did 5 other folks, and had a grand time. There is just one island between our anchorage and the Gulf so we were told that because of the storm shelling on the Gulf hside of the island is really good. Tomorrow a bunch of us will take our dingys over, have lunch and see what we can find.

Then it is on to Lake Okeechobee to cross the state and end up on the east coast. More on that later.

Sarasota, FL

(I wrote this post 2 days ago but have not been able to post it due to NO INTERNET - GRRR! We are currently at the rendezvous which starts shortly. More about that later.)

We have been in Sarastoa since Friday. When we left the Everglades, we went to a marina in Naples for 2 nights.

At the Naples marina we were docked next to September Song (Bob and Stephanie) which was great. The first night we ate at the dockside restaurant and the second night we ordered a great pizza which we had with Stephanie and Bob on Rickshaw. During the day Bob helped Rick replace the cable on the winch that we use to hoist the dingy up and down. The old one had started to fray and we were worried that it would break and that we would lose the dingy! They made a good team and it was done in no time.

Here is Bob bringing adult beverages to Rickshaw to have with the pizza. We had planned to stay in Naples for several days but the weather forcast was not looking good for the next few days (high winds and bumpy seas). So, we followed September Song to an anchorage just north of Sanibel island. Many people know

Sanibel and Captiva islands on the west coast for the beautiful beaches and great shelling. We arrived before the winds kicked up too badly and spent two nights there. On the second night Stephanie and Bob invited us over for a wonderful shrimp and garlic dinner. Earlier they docked next to a shrimper and were able to get 12 lbs of shrimp for $30!! A good deal anywhere. I had bought an apple pie in Naples and we polished that off for dessert. It was a very fun evening.

We left early on Friday morning for the long passage up the west coast Intercoastal Waterway. It too us 9 1/2 hours to get here but it was a pleasant cruise. Here are some what we call 'Keysie' house boats outside of Naples. Not a bad way to live.

We wanted to come to Sarasota to visit our friends Bryan and Chris who were from DC and have made a new life in Sarasota. Bryan and Lynnie worked together with IBM many moons ago and have stayed in touch all these years. This is the view from our boat at the marina. A very pretty city.

Bryan picked us up on Saturday and gave us the tour of Sarasota. We seldom get the chance to really see the city that we are docked in. You can only see so much on a bike and we are usually just determined to get to the local grocery store or West Marina for provisions and/or boat parts. Then we spent the night at Bryan and Chris' beautiful home. All of the doors lead to the pool. I could vacation there nicely for several weeks!

They also took us to the much needed liquor store and grocery store. I went back on Sunday for their Oscar party which was a real blast. It was a real treat to catch up with their lives. Sarasota is one of the prettiest cities we have visited in Florida. Bryan sells real estate and kept giving us the sales pitch to move there...maybe someday! Below are Chris fixing an amazing amount of appetizers, Bryan fixing the drinks and Bryan and me in our Oscar 'outfits'. So fun.

Tomorrow we leave the marina and start heading south. The DeFever rendezvous (our make of boat) starts on Friday. There will be 40 or so DeFever boats there and about 130 or so DeFever owners in attendance. This will be our 3rd rendezvous and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Anchored behind Sanibel Island, FL

It has been over a week since we blogged. But we've been on the move so following are some highlights. This will be a long entry so, hopefully, you have your coffee or adult beverage in hand!!

We left Marathon in the Florida Keys where we had been for a little over 3 weeks. We enjoyed our stay there but were anxious to get going and when the winds finally died down we hightailed it out of there with Vicki and Norm (Tidehiker). Here is Rickshaw going under the 7 mile bridge which connects the middle keys, where we were in Marathon, to the lower keys. We are heading north toward the SW Florida Everglades.

We made our way offshore southern Florida on the Florida Bay. It was a beautiful day with low winds and calm seas. We were out of sight of land for much of the time because the Florida Bay is so large. Our destination was the Little Shark River, just west of Flamingo, where Bob and Stephanie (September Song) were anchored. This is part of the Everglades National Park. It was a beautiful but remote anchorage where we didn't see any other boats or have access to cell phone or internet service. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars except during those three nights. Above, sunset over our dingy.

We had all gathered on Tide Hiker for dinner, and returned after dark to Rickshaw.

Rick must digress here with a little story. You just can't make these things up. When we anchored we noticed the current was really strong in the river at 4+ knots. After we returned to Rickshaw and got into the boat there was a distinct new noise ... we don't like new noises. Upon investigation, Rick discovered that the shafts were turning, even though the engines were not running, in the current at about 60 - 80 rpm, and that was the source of the noise. This is not a good thing to let continue for any length of time, as the transmissions are not designed to have their gears turning without adequate hydraulic pressure provided by a running engine; it's similar to towing a vehicle behind an RV with its transmission in neutral ... lots of excessive wear and tear. Rick tried to hold one of the turning shafts with a non-skid pad, which didn't work at all. So he resigned to wait until "slack water" when the tide turns and there is no current to deal with it. Slack occurred near midnight, and he tied off the shafts to the engine mounts with line wrapped around the transmission coupling, then waited for the boat to turn in the shifting tide and the current to build again. He was finally satisfied he had fixed the issue and came to bed at 1:00AM.

It turns out September Song dragged anchor about 30 feet in the middle of the night, caught again and reset, but Bob moved the boat to a new location in the morning.

The next night we were about to go to bed and Rick checked the anchor chain before coming in. Right before his eyes, he saw the anchor chain bump and skip, which is not supposed to happen. This meant the anchor was dragging as the current increased the pressure from the boat. Major adrenalin pump started. His initial reaction was to start the engines, but of course the shafts were now tied off from the previous evening, so he would have had to undo all that before having any propulsion to offset the dragging. So he put his hands on his head for comfort, held his breath, and waited about 10 seconds, and sure enough, the anchor caught and dug in again after we'd dragged about 50+ feet or so. Now the task was to deploy more anchor chain to avoid future drag. We always deploy an anchor bridal to take the strain off the windlass in a current. Basicly it's a rope with a big hook that attaches to the anchor chain on one end, and the boat cleats on the other. With a strong current one does not want to winch it in with the windlass so he had to wait until "slack" again to be able to pull in the bridal, take it off, deploy more chain, and reset the bridal. The next slack was midnight, so it was another long somewhat stressful evening, but he finally got 175 feet of chain on the bottom, and the problem was solved. Strange noises and dragging anchors ARE somewhat stressful, and generally result in some sleep deprivation ...!

The next day Bob and Stephanie along with their 2 labs, Godiva and Cassie, in their dingy, and us in our dingy, gave us a tour around the mangrove islands. We tried using the movie function of the camera. Obviously, we need to work on that a little more, but you can see the view we had (there is sound with the video).

The islands in and around the Little Shark River consisted entirely of Mangrove trees with their knarley roots and swampy understory. There's really no place to get out and walk.

Ibis in the Mangrove trees.

Rickshaw in the Little Shark River.

We left the Little Shark River after 3 nights and moved westward along the Everglades and stopped at another anchorage in the Ten Thousand Islands outside of Everglades City, which is really not a city at all but a very small village. We dingied into the town to have lunch at the famous Rod and Gun Club which has been around since the 19th century. You can definitely tell it was a Men's club! Then we walked around looking for a newspaper and bait. All we found was bait! Norm had tried fishing from the back of Tidehiker with squid but only caught catfish which he threw back. He also tried pepperoni and meatballs, but the fish must have been vegetarians as he didn't have any bites!! Below is Everglades City.

There were a lot of air boats taking tourists into the Everglades. The pelicans are so familiar with the boats that they sit on them looking for handouts.

Norm, Vicki and Lynnie in the dingy.

Various shots of the inside of the club. The Club had lots of wild animal heads and bodies on the wall. Just what you would expect.

Rick talking on the ancient phone - actually had dial tone.

Rick enjoying the dingy ride.

Rick and I left Tidehiker at the anchorage and headed up to Naples, FL. We are officially on the

west coast now. We stayed at the Naples City marina and September Song was docked right next to us. We had planned to stay for a few days in Naples but the weather was turning dicey so we left on Wednesday which was a better day to travel than Thursday. We are currently anchored just north of Sanibel Island. We'll stay here until Friday when we'll head up to Sarasota for a few days to visit with an IBM friend from DC who now lives in Sarasota.

STILL in Marathon (Part 3)

The weather is finally starting to lie down, which means that we will be able to leave. Right now the ETD is tomorrow, Wednesday. We are all getting antsy to get back on the water. It does mean, however, that we won't be going to the Dry Tortugas as we are running out of time and we are afraid that we might get stuck there with other fronts coming in.

In the meantime, on Sunday we had the DeFever gang (12 people plus one guest) over to Rickshaw for appetizers, drinks and a book and DVD swap. Vicki had the idea for the swap and everyone was really pleased with trading for new (used) books and movies that they had not seen yet. Thanks to Bob for some of these pictures.

It was fun to host everyone on our boat. The next morning some of our boating neighbors laughingly said that they were worried that with so many people on board the boat might sink!!! After the party here, most folks went down to the Dockside Bar and Grill for dinner and dancing with a really great band.

Yesterday Rick and I took our bikes down to West Marine, the boat stuff store, and Home Depot. Then we made our way to the Fish Tank for a lobster reuben. We had heard it was a great sandwich and it was! It was a funky place where you placed your order at a window and they asked for the name of a wild animal. I said Tiger and that is what our order was called by. Strange but Keysie, I guess. We forgot our camera so we 'borrowed' Doug's picture when the Gypsies went there.

From here we will start up the west coast. We are doing our chart planning now but we think the first stop will be an anchorage on the Little Shark river which is actually part of the Everglades National Park, although we will see more mangrove and hard woods than the grasses that you normally think of in the Everglades. Then on to Marco Island and Naples. Mo' later!