The next couple days were good days for solar cruising. We anchored on the south side of Pine Island at St. James City and then arrived in Fort Myers Beach where we lay'd over for a couple days. It was time to provision the pantry and we knew of a Publix with good access from the water located in Mantanzas Pass. After provisioning, we moved the boat just a little further down toward the entrance to Estero River at San Carlos Pass.
December 22nd - 24th
Time to head out but this time we're out of ditch so we had to go offshore to Naples. We set out very early (for us solar folks anyway), to ride the tide out the inlet as we heading for Naples. Naturally we were headed straight to weather which made for a day long slog to the next inlet but at least we weren't getting broadsided by the 2'-3' swells and 20 mph wind. And, we made it to anchor right at sunset with the relief that we avoided any night opps coming into Naples Bay. From there we worked our way down to Marco Island along the ICW again and Monday, found us nestled in a calm basin beside another causeway where Carter found a Winn Dixie with a dingy dock using high resolution satellite imagery analysis. Which is his way of saying he looked it up on Google Earth. We finished the provisioning that we didn't complete in Mantanzas Pass and the weather turned bad so we just hunkered down to spend Christmas Eve in this nice little basin called Smoke House Bay.
December 25th-26th
Well, we didn't quite make it to the "Keys" for Christmas but we're close and when the weather finally settled down a bit, we weighed anchor on Christmas Day and set out into the open Gulf again on our final leg to the Keys. With partly cloudy skies, 3-5' seas, 20 mph headwinds, and 90 miles of open ocean between us and Key West, it was time to fire up Big Ben and make the sprint. We ran hard until 12:30 am when we dropped anchor in a little bite Carter found by the Shark River then dropped ourselves into bed.
We started out the 26th figuring we would hug the coast to stay in shallow water where it was a lot calmer but once we got out there, we found the wind had shifted and we had a following sea that was pretty darn good for heading straight across Florida Bay. Carter set a course for Big Pine Key where we planned to get on the Back Country route that winds thru the Keys and head into Key West in the ditch. We made it to the Keys by sunset and quickly found an island to anchor behind just before dark. Tomorrow we should be in Key West.
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