Just Ducky

We’re on Our Way home!

Pam and her pet Alligator

Although we were ready to take off sooner, we finally got the right wind conditions to go up the west coast of Florida on March 19^th. We didn’t let a few sprinkles deter us as we averaged over 7 knots (speedy for us) among the crab pots through Florida Bay up to Little Shark River to anchor for the night. No sharks, but one alligator and lots and lots of bugs! Mat caught a few catfish until the bugs drove him inside the boat. We arrived at Fort Myers Beach just about the same time our friends Don and Lavon returned from their trip. So we headed over to their condo where they had a slip for us for our stay. They were really great hosts. Travel to and from the beach area is quite a challenge during high season as the roads can’t handle all of the traffic. So we got to think like the Floridians and only go in that direction either early or late in the day. The beach is beautiful with soft, white powdery sand. We took trips to the beach, Cape Coral for lunch and Sanibel Island where we toured the “Ding” Darling Nature Preserve and took part in a wonderful barbeque. Their condo association has all of the amenities such as pool, community room for parties and tennis. We took advantage of the pool and the surrounding seating areas in the evenings as we traded Happy Hour for Sundowners. There we go being flexible again!

With Fort Myers Beach being our northernmost destination on the west coast, we proceeded back into the Gulf of Mexico to start our journey back to Connecticut. It’s hard to believe we were actually in the Gulf. We stayed at Marco Island for a couple of nights and attended Easter Vigil services at the church there. While our mass on Palm Sunday was over in less than 45 minutes, we did get our money’s worth on Easter with a record 2-1/4 hours. After leaving my purse in a taxi the night before and having it returned to me, we had a lot to be thankful for.

We went back through Florida Bay and found all of those crab pots we were told about. Some areas made our lobster pots in Long Island Sound look like nothing! Some skinny water was also part of the trip; you’d think we’d be use to it by now. Our depth sounder was reading 4.2 but we have a 5 foot depth. We expected to be aground but we weren't. Our only explanation is that it was reading from the top of the sea grass, not the bottom. Even though we have towboat US on speed dial, we were happy not to have to call them. We’ve had some pretty long days on the water before making it to Biscayne Bay. We made it out of Miami Harbor slowly as there were many container ships coming our way. They’re bigger; they win the right of way. We had a great day sailing, yes I did say sailing, up the coast to Fort Lauderdale, getting up to 9.4 knots. What a ride!

We are back at Bahia Mar Marina, home of the mega yachts and Just Ducky. Johnny Depp’s yacht is also here but unfortunately he is not. There was a boater’s appreciation party last night that was great;

stone crab, wild shrimp and oysters and an open bar. We feel truly appreciated!

We put our down time waiting out some stormy weather to good use and had our VHF radio checked out as we have been told that our transmissions were low in volume. Radio and connections are fine so it was the antenna that needed to be replaced. Climbing up the 59 foot mast was not something we wanted to do ourselves, so we called in the pros and now have a new antenna.

We plan to leave tomorrow for Lake Worth and all places North as we continue our journey home. We are feeling better about the shallow water to come now that we have our new GPS with better graphics but will probably have to use the tides in our favor to get through the rough spots and allow us to sleep better at night. We’ll stop to see some folks and sights along the way. Our ETA in Connecticut is somewhere mid to late May. Hope the snow and cold weather will be gone by then. (That was supposed to be a joke).