Every Boat needs a Paranoid First Mate!!

...No, really!!!:)

I think I actually get top marks for only telling Waz to keep to the Magenta line, ONCE!!! And that is in shallow water. We have been there before, remember?? me, the paranoid shallow water boater! yep...not much has changed!! Waz is cool as a cucumber, of course, and gives me THAT look...you've seen it in your partner?? you know THE ONE!:)

It was sad leaving our 'home' of the past 4 months on the dock outside our Hosts home , and leaving them and their 2 week old baby, Mia.
Waz and I had goodbye cuddles with baby before casting off from the dock and heading out. We turned almost on the spot, and motored off to the first 90 degree turn....


I will back up a bit here....mostly because no parting is that simple. It has taken us a whole week to prepare for the departure, and that included biking to the supermarket with the red card literally in tow (sorry, no picture!! sheesh!!). It works well, and we put the blue cooler into the cart and kept all our things cool until we got home....that was Friday (yesterday?).At least I took photos of our bikes at the supermarket...!

Here they are! sans cart, but never mind!

...and arrived 'home' to the dock and boat.

 

I told you I would bore you with bike pics:)

 

Moving right along...

 

Yes, we got the boat ready, took the covers off the windshield (they were a bit dirty!) and the day before (Thursday?) had washed down the front windows upstairs on the fly deck, and cleaned all things that needed cleaning. We put away the things that could fall over, and down and found spaces for them...miracles! We didn't know there were any spaces, left!!!:)

 

We had to buy a new flag...I told you that, so I have taken a picture with it in...this one is smaller than the last, which I like, coz it doesn't drag on the upper deck!

 

Here we are leaving our canal home for the wide open Charlotte Harbor.

 

...and this is where we are headed...but..BUTTTT! see the last post there? well, we have a right turn..90 degree turn, to be precise!. Well, we had been told to stick to the sea wall on the right, but not too close. Well, here *I* was thinking he was a bit wide (but didn't say anything....much...just..."Shouldn't we be a bit CLOSER to the wall?" when we found out super fast that we were in the sand, already. Niente problemo! He just backed her up, and then we refloated (this makes 3 groundings, strictly speaking) and went forward as we were supposed to...closer to the wall! Hard to know how deep it is out there, except that you can kind of see the sandy bottom!!!!

See the wall on the left? and the sign on the right? Now, that is the wall we came along and were supposed to turn hard left (port) to get around the sign and out into the channel. We decided, with the wind, and all, that we would just go into the next canal, do a 360 turn and then go straight out that canal into the channel. WHY didn't we do that going in???It was SOOOOO easy, and would do it again in a heartbeat. Here we are leaving THAT canal behind.

 

 Waz turned the boat 360 right there where the canal goes left and straight ahead at the same time..you know, the crossroads, as it were...

 Now we are out into the channel...you can just see the sign at the bottom of the right hand red triangles, and we had to turn hard to starb'd and go along the sea wall on the right...! going in, and reverse, coming out.

Just thought you should know that the tomatoes survive, still. We tried pollinating them this morning, but not sure my paintbrush method will work!

 The captain was totally chilled through all these trials.
Here he is relaxing at the wheel, while I was searching for Dolphin to keep me otherwise occupied in the shallow waters. For most of the way down the Charlotte Harbor, it was about 11-15ft deep.
We departed at around 1.45pm because of the high tide needed to get out of the shallow channels.
We weren't going far...just 2 1/2 hrs south.

 This chart shows the dotted line on the right which was the route we came into the harbor some 4 months previously. We had to almost retrace our path to get to the ICW at the bottom of the harbor. Yes, those numbers in blue are how deep it is! NOW do you understand why I am paranoid??

This was the depth when we stopped this afternoon, and that is what we are anchored in!

That is the boat, bottom left with the red/green, and that is the skinny channel we have to travel to stay floating on or bottom!..in white between the red and green flags. See where it broadens to 12 feet? Well, as you can see, it is only 7.5ft!  but that is the deepest place we could anchor on the way, for the night. As you can see, the rest of the place is VERY shallow:)

 Here we are parked just off Useppa Island  We have three other boats parked alongside, which is very nice!

Pretty late afternoon light.

The Captain enjoying a post dinner cuppa on the fly deck with the setting sun on port side.

Is this gorgeous, or what?

There is a cool breeze blowing into the salon, as I write this...it is heaven!

Watching the birds feeding, the Osprey and Bald Eagles flying, calling and circling overhead is something special. These birds included Pelicans, Great blue Heron, large and small Egrets.

I was lucky to line this boater up with the setting sun, as he went by us. We are parked about 100 feet off the ICW, so we do get some wake from all the boats going by. That has almost stopped now it is dark, and hopefully we wont have a rockin' rollin' night. At least it is cool!

This is heavy traffic along the ICW

...and the Coast Guard could have gone faster...seriously!! did they really NEED to go that fast and create such a wake? ...and then they came back again!!! sheesh!

The best photo I took...stunning colors!

 

I need to go and cover up on the fly deck, as there is a small chance of rain and we don't want everything wet, up there.

 

This morning we decided to spray some of the outdoor seats with waterproofing...why now? well, we had meant to do it some time ago, and it wasn't like we had anything else to do, on the day we were leaving, lol. Nothing like last minute!

 

 

We had Italian Sausages from the German Butcher on Hwy 41, for dinner, with a super large salad...and some onions cooked in coconut butter..yum! Simple, filling and just perfect to end the day. A cup of tea on the fly deck while the sun set, and then closing up and coming down stairs to the Salon. Waz is passed out beside me, while the stereo is playing too loud, but I don't know how to operate that thing! so it stays loud.

It is almost 10pm, and pumpkin time!

 

We miss our little family, in Port Charlotte, but we have set them up with Skype so that we can keep in touch and talk to young Mia. I have to sing her some more silly kiwi songs! That's what Kiwi Aunties do!:)

 

Well folks...time to turn in and sleep a very contented sleep. It was great being in Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda for the 4 months, but it is also fabulous to be on the water again and enjoying all the reasons why we chose to do this in the first place.  We are content!

 

Ciao for now....Fort Meyers tomorrow, after some exploring and tiki-touring in the dinghy, in the morning:)