The “flytrap” of coastal Florida is Vero Beach. Cruising boaters come for a couple of days, and very frequently stay for weeks. We stopped here after getting back to the east coast of Florida, and used it as a base for a couple of weeks while we take care of some errands.In the photo, a couple of the ever-present dolphins swim between anchored boats.

After crossing Lake Okeechobee (the 2nd largest natural fresh water lake in North America), we stayed a couple of days in the marina provided by the Corps of Engineers.These spots are tiny, with room for only a half dozen boats or so, and adjoin campgrounds full of RVs.

Here’s Dory on the right, and Sea Otter II on the left, with George and Jackie on deck.

We reached St. Petersburg April 7th, and stopped to wait out high winds and thunderstorms before continuing. The forecast was for several days of this. Because of the long stretches of open water ahead, with no place to duck in out of bad weather, we had to wait for a several day break between cold fronts and associated winds and waves. That’s about normal for this time of year, but… In case you wondered, boating is mostly waiting for weather!)

4/19, and still in St. Petersburg. As you can see, it’s a pleasant anchorage, and the weather for being a tourist is spectacular. Someday, the waves in the Gulf will calm down, and we’ll move on…

Change of plans!

We’d planned to go to New Orleans and then to head up the Tennessee-Tombigbee River at Mobile Alabama, inland for about 400-500 miles to the Kentucky Lakes, and on to Nashville when we left Florida, but the traditional “March winds” kept blowing throughout April, and are forecast to continue well into May. We needed calm winds for an extended period in order to cross some 300 miles of the Gulf of Mexico (at 6-7 miles an hour). Also, the heavy snowstorms in the winter resulted in record amounts of flood waters being sent down the rivers, meaning we’d have to fight our way up the rivers.

Well, in waiting for calm winds we’ve now used up all of the time we’d hoped to spend visiting New Orleans and up the rivers. We’d get to our destination, and then have to immediately turn around and head back.

So, we’ve decided to change plans, and head across Florida via Lake Okeechobee, then up the east coast into the Chesapeake, probably with a stop in Washington DC.

These plans will change, no doubt, but the Gulf and the rivers are out for this year.

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.