Our plan for the season was to work our way up the west side of Florida to Tampa Bay then return. We are beginning the return trip. However a lot has happened in the meantime.
After leaving the boatyard in Glades we moved down to Fort Myers and picked up a mooring ball to spend several days. Cori's collage roommate Rhonda Lohr Bindert, lives here and we were able to spend some time with them and their friends. While here, we were able to experience a hatching of a bug referred to as midges. These are small flying insects that look like mosquito's but do not bite. They do however poop green stuff on everything. They don't like direct sunlight and avoid the wind. They swarm wherever they feel save and our cockpit was inviting. One evening I heard a noise and went out on deck to investigate. I didn't take a light and was barefoot. The deck felt wet and strange and I was suddenly swarmed by the little creatures. I hurried below deck and closed up trying to keep them out. In the morning I could see my tracks on deck where I had been squashing them. The cockpit enclosure was filled with thousands if not more of them. Trying to drive them away didn't so any good and if squashed they left a nasty stain. Before moving on we stopped at the marina and they let us hose everything off with dirty green water flowing off the deck. We are still cleaning up areas that we missed. Leaving Fort Myers we moved down to Pine Island hoping to make a side trip to Sanibel Island for some shelling. We stopped at Pine for several days because there was a weather front coming and we would be protected from north winds. Once the winds died down we chose to continue on our way. We moved the next two days up the ICW (Intra Coastal Waterway) and moved out into the Gulf at Boca Grande Pass and sailed up near the entrance to Tampa Bay. We spent the night along Anna Maria Island preferring not to make our way into the bay and finding an anchorage in the dark. In the morning we moved into the bay and made our way to the anchorage at Gulfport.
We had decided to come up this way for an opportunity to meet up with Hi Flites previous owner. Unfortunately George passed away several years ago but we were able to spend time with Barbara as she treated us to lunch and she spent some time aboard going over the changes to the boat and hearing of their experiences sailing her. We were also able to meet up with our friends Jane and Paul from SV-Peace. We met them when we first got to Puerto Rica and met up with them several times in the Caribbean, last seeing them in St Thomas USVI. From Gulfport we moved across the Bay to Apollo Beach to spend some time with Rick and Susan from C_Language. C_Language is another 42' Pearson that uses the same hull as Hi Flite but is set up as a center cockpit. We first met Rick in the Bahamas when he tried to find the problems we were having with our Single Sideband Radio and talk to him often on the radio. Our stay at their dock lasted a little longer then we had expected but it gave us a chance to take care of some much needed projects and some time off the boat. I even had an opportunity to go fishing which amounts to the first fish we have been able to catch in several years.
We finally departed but not before going aground in the channel leaving their canal. They came out with their skiff and lead us to the deep water channel that is about 6-10 feet deep. We draw 5.5 feet and kept finding the shallows. Once out in the bay we were surprised to find the wind favorable for sailing. We were able to sail almost all the way across the Bay until the winds died off. At one point we were surprised to have a couple of boats pass us and when looking back we found we were on part of the course used for sailing races and had a fleet of racers coming up on us. Due to forecasted south winds we chose to take the ICW back rather then fight against the winds offshore. We made good time motoring each day until we got to Boca Grande Pass where we had gone out but this time we turned in and worked our way to the southern end of Charlotte Harbor Bay and anchored by Pine Island intending to dinghy down to Matlacha Island. My cousin Janet and several of her friends were vacationing at Matlacha and we were invited for a visit. On the dinghy ride to meet up with them, about a three mile ride, we were stopped by Florida Marine Patrol officers for a check. With the canvas chaps Cori made for the dinghy you cannot see our registration numbers. They stopped to check our registration. Everything was going well until they noticed that it was expired. We thought it expired in June but it had expired the end of January. We were lucky to get off with a warning. We have heard many complaints and horror stories about how the Florida Marine Patrol treats cruisers but these gentlemen were pleasant to deal with. We met with Janet and friends and spent the day visiting, making it back to the boat just as the sunset. The next day Janet, Candace and Cindy came out to spend some time on Hi Flite. We weren't able to take them out for sail but had a pleasant time introducing them to our lifestyle.
With the treat of strong north winds we pulled anchor the next day and moved to Cayo Costa and anchored. This anchorage is next to one of the barrier islands but with the smaller islands around it we are protected almost 360 degrees. It doesn't hurt that it is a State Park and just on the other side is reported to be some outstanding shelling.
This is where we are now. The winds have been blowing over 20 knots since yesterday afternoon and we are just sitting it out waiting for it to move on. We will spend a couple of days here before moving, working our way around the tip of Florida and moving back into the Atlantic Ocean and continuing north.
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