Cruising towards the Keys

Wednesday, February 14. We left Sarasota’s Marina Jacks about 10:15am and cruised through the Intracoastal Waterway just past Venice to anchor at Cape Haze. We contacted Brian (Lady Jane 3) via NEBO and they confirmed there was plenty of room.

Birds eye view from NEBO. Yep, we are surrounded by homes. After we anchored, 3 sailboats and 1 catamaran came into the cove. Surprisingly, there was plenty of room

Sunset at Cape Haze.

Thursday, February 15. Another anchorage destination today to Cayo Costa State Park. The park is closed due to hurricane damage from H. Ian, but the anchorage is beautiful. We anchored near Deborah & Kurt (Honey Badger) and dinghy’d over to the beach for shelling.

Cayo Costa beach.

This is a whelk (edible marine snails) egg case washed up on the beach. This is new knowledge for me!

Very peaceful anchorage at Cayo Costa.

Sunrise at Cayo Costa.

Friday, February 16th. We had to visit Cabbage Key. Famous little island around the corner with history dated back to 10,000 B.C. (google it for more!) Fast forward to 1971 when Bob and JoAnn Beck purchased the onsite restaurant with the legendary dollar bill bar. 1976, Rob & Phyllis Wells purchased the Cabbage Key Island and business. Their son still owns it today. Although many other places claim Jimmy Buffet’s Cheeseburger in Paradise’ song was inspired there, it’s Cabbage Key’s bar with the $1 bills that makes it pretty easy to imagine the inspiration came from this place.

Yep, this is our mark. The bar provides a sharpie and tape to add to the collection.

We shared a table with Brian and Chrissy (Lady Jane 3) which made the experience alot of fun. After Cabbage Key we cruised to Captiva Island for one more night on anchor.

Saturday, February 17. We were right by Tween Waters Marina on Captiva Island. Due to a storm coming in we decided to stay for two nights. We bicycled all over the island, chatted with fellow tourists and bought sandwiches at the local deli for dinner. The marina/hotel was hosting a wedding and it was a beautiful calm day. Hard to believe there would be much of a storm.

Sunday, February 18. OH MY GOODNESS. At about 1:00 am we awoke to being pushed, bounced, rolled within our spot on the fixed dock. Thankfully, Darth is very meticulous when tying the boat to the poles assigned to our spot. Even so, he and the two boats on either side owners were out in the thick of it making sure their boats would be ok. One neighbor on a 40+ Sabre is in his 80’s and he was also out there. Everyone was ok and the boats did not have any damage.

Morning walk to find shells that may have washed up during storm.

We found a butterfly.

After the walk the rain came back and fog. We stayed put.

Monday, February 19th. What a difference one day made. We pumped out and cruised to Fort Myers Mooring Balls. Our mission was to get our porthole window repaired before heading south to the Keys.

Sunset on the morring ball. The water calmed down during the night. We had dinghy’d to provision from a Publix grocery store—just down the way. : )

Tuesday, February 20, Fort Myers Beach. No luck on the porthole fix—off we go.

Our cruise intention was Gordon Pass—in between Ft. Myers and Marco Island. It was way to ‘sporty’ so we ducked into a great anchorage at Doctors Pass and put the anchor down in 5’ water.

Wednesday, February 21. We left the calm anchorage to find more ‘sporty’ water so we ducked into the inside passage way to Rose Marina on Marco Is. This would be our last stop to provision and get fuel for the next few days.

Rose Marina on very swanky Marco Island.

Thursday, February 22. We are now heading to an anchorage at Russell Pass. Paul and Karla (Current Plan) told us this was a good stop on the way to Everglades City. We also saw on NEBO Brian and Chrissy (Lady Jane 3) were heading our way so the 3 boats anchored together. It was by far the calmest water we have had on the Gulf. We saw many dolphins—still trying to get a good photo, and it was just a relaxing cruise all day.

We dinghy’d to Current Plan for docktails.

Brian (Lady Jane 3) has a drone and shared this photo of our anchorage.

Wednesday, February 23. We cruised 5 miles to Everglades City. So excited to start this part of our loop!