In early March, we left Islamorada and headed up to the west coast of Florida. Shallow water near land meant that we were far off the coast much of the time. We anchored in the Little Shark River on the edge of the Everglades the first night headed north, and then anchored behind an island a few miles from Everglades City the second night. Upon reaching Marco Island, we anchored near the city and stopped for a few days, for shopping and for a few maintenance items before continuing to Naples.

Weather (mostly a choppy Gulf of Mexico) kept us in Naples for about a week, but we finally found a break in the weather and moved to Cape Coral, where we met up with friends from North Carolina we’d met earlier in our cruising. We anchored in a small basin near a city park and several homes. Here’s a sunrise shot of the other boats at anchor at Bimini Basin, in Cape Coral FL, and a photo from space of the same area.

A week of windy weather kept us in Cape Coral. The forecast looks good for April 2nd or so to continue north.

By the way, life isn’t all boring when we get stuck. The satellite image shows the basin we are anchored in. We’re among 3 other boats, anchored a few hundred feet apart in the middle of the basin. We’ve gotten together frequently.

At the top/north of the basin you can see a little canal. We take our dinghies to that canal and tie up along the side, which is part of a city park. (The park administration thoughtfully provides cleats for our dinghies.) From there, it’s a short walk to a grocery store, a great breakfast place, a coin laundry, and a local bar and grill with a nice “happy hour”.

A local resident invited the 8 of us (on 4 boats) to visit and have cocktails, and a few days later drove some of us to the local farmers’ market.

Also, there is an extensive bus system, and we can get just about anywhere within 20 miles or so vis the busses.

We went on to Boca Grande when the weather finally cleared up. This little island has a tiny anchorage. Unlike most, where we dropped the anchor well away from other boats, here we had to drop anchor and then back up to the mangroves, where we tied the stern to keep it from swinging into adjacent boats.

After a night at Boca Grande, we went to Sarasota. A beautiful city, but very rocky anchorage, from boats that didn’t bother to slow down going to and from the marina as they went past the anchored boats.