I'm not going to lie about this next leg of our journey. I've heard it said that it happens to everyone. I'm not going to say just how many times it happened, but I will say that we have got our 'skegging off the shoal' routine down pat. It began at the Manasota Beach Bridge while trying to get to our previously determined anchorage location.
Everyday, the Captain takes time to plan our daily travel and pick a good spot to settle for the night. He uses the chart plotter as well as Google Maps on his smart phone. So far, this has worked flawlessly but .... sometimes the charts just don't accurately portray the depth of the water and it's hard to tell on Google as well.
We were heading for a nice public dock right beside a bridge to tie up to for the night and ran aground where we really thought there should be water. We skegged off this shoal and decided to turn around and and cross the canal to the other side of the bridge where there was a sailboat already at anchor. There must be water there, right? Wrong, we ran aground again! The tide was coming in, it was dinner time and we were both tired and hungry, so since we were safely out of the channel we sat down to dinner. I was making a Mexican dish that night that Carter likes and now it has a new name, Carter calls it "Run Aground Casserole". The bridge tender must have thought we were crazy!
After dinner, Carter got in the whaler and began taking soundings all around us to find out exactly where the water was. Turns out the channel was close up to the shoreline right along the mangroves instead of out. So, we weighed anchor and headed back to the dock we originally started for, this time sticking close to the shore. It worked and we spent the night tied safely to this nice public dock at Manasota Beach. It was just getting to be sunset by the time we finished so we took a walk and discovered the Gulf was just across the road from the park!
Saturday, December 14th
We had no problems leaving the dock this morning now knowing where the water is. We left pretty early this day as soon as the batteries were fully charged.
Radar and I hanging out on the boat waiting for the batteries to charge so we can move on down the river.
He's so cute!
When we came through here last spring, this ferry was busy transporting heavy equipment across the river. The construction must be complete as they are now transporting cars to a parking lot where the people then get into a golf cart to go to their final destination. That ferry is busy all day long.
Sometimes when we are going down long stretches of ditch, an efficient way to give Radar his shore leave is to simply jump in the whaler and take him to an island we are passing. So I take the helm and the Captain takes him ashore while I continue on down the river in the Arc. Radar has his shore leave and it doesn't take them long to catch up with me.
A swing bridge as we were passing through.
This day turned out to be a very quiet, uneventful day. LOVE those uneventful days!
This is an interesting house with lots of solar panels!
We anchored early at about 2:30 pm in Lemon Bay next to Beach Road Bridge...and another McDonalds!
Sunday, December 15th
We waited until 1:00 pm to weigh anchor and decided to take a shortcut back to the ICW. Here's where we learned to NEVER try and take a shortcut to the ICW. We ran aground and despite our best efforts all afternoon, we were not able to skegg ourselves off this time and ended up waiting for high tide to do the work for us. This didn't happened until about 8:00 pm that evening at which time we were finally able to move the boat to deeper water and wait for the next morning to try again. Once again, we are located next to a bridge with a bridge tender who got a front row ticket to "Carter and Diane Skegg off show".
Monday (Dec 16th) morning we departed Lemon Bay with fully charged batteries for both the boat and ourselves! This time we diligently followed our snail trail back out of this anchorage into the ICW and proceeded to cruise on down the river to Uncle Henry's Marina in Gasperella. We needed to do several chores like 15 days worth of laundry,empty the holding tanks, and fill the water tanks.
Can you see the Arc at the end of the dock?
The boat is below dock level but you can't miss the solar panels!
Uncle Henry's Marina turned out to be a good choice, accomplishing all the chores, and leaving just after dark to find an anchorage close by. Unfortunately, the passage into and out of this marina was very narrow as well as twisty, turny with a ripping cross current that was bad enough in the full daylight. It proved to be a nail biting night op experience for us and but we made it out successfully and found a nice anchorage behind a spoils island, perfect for taking Radar out for his shore leave in the morning. { It's all about Radar!}
Tuesday, December 17th
After a good nights sleep we continued on down the ICW with Cabbage Key as our destination for the day. There is a restaurant there that is well known and Carter has been wanting to check it out for a couple of years. It was a nice day with only one snag in Charlotte Harbor ... on my shift no less ... but with a lot of hard work we were able to overcome yet another brush with the bottom and proceeded on to anchor in Cabbage Key at sunset where we encounter yet another brief encounter with the bottom. But again, we overcame this fairly quickly, hopped into the whaler and headed over to the restaurant where we consumed a delicious albeit, very expensive cheeseburger.
Cabbage Key Restaurant
Over the years, patrons have plastered the bar and restaurant with thousands of dollar bills and the owner told me that there is more than $50,000 on the walls. There is now more than $50,001 as Carter and I left a dollar with our names on it. It began years ago with fisherman leaving a dollar bill with their name on it to pay for their beer upon their return from sea.
Locals like to claim that longtime regular Jimmy Buffet was inspired to write his song "Cheeseburger in Paradise" here and this was the main reason Carter wanted to come but the owner said that was just a rumor ... although Jimmy did perform on stage here at her restaurant where he dedicated the song to Cabbage Key that night. Another Caribbean Urban Myth busted. Carter said of all the cheeseburgers he's had in Paradise, this was the first one that was ever served with candied carrots and rice pilaf instead of fries. Guess that so they could justify the $25 price tag.
PS This is the first Christmas tree I've seen this season so I had to have my picture taken with it! I love Christmas!
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