WEDNESDAY - What beautiful weather! Cruising the Caloosahatchee
River toward San Carlos Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, we passed rural farmlands, beautiful
homes and transited two more locks. The Ortona Lock lowered us 8 feet and the
Franklin Lock dropped the last three feet to sea level. The lockmasters were kind
and patient, giving us time to prepare before operating the gates. We had very
little wait and SeaDream was alone in both locks.
Nearing Fort Myers we faced a quandary: two days of thunderstorms
are blowing in, there are virtually no anchorages and those few look lousy (but
many, many, many expensive marinas), the chart is densely covered with channel
markers, boats of all sizes are numerous and we’re completely unfamiliar with
the area. Taken together, these signal “stop and hole up for two days”…… prudence
demands we wait out the weather when facing so many unknowns.
Nearing Fort Myers, we passed the small SweetWater Landing
Marina. Mike called and negotiated an acceptable rate for three nights, so here
we are, tied dockside until Saturday brings glorious weather again to continue
toward St.Petersburg. We’re a little outside the city but there are bonuses,
too: cost is okay, there’s a large grassy field next to SeaDream for Louie to
run, we can relax and catch up on chores (like washing clothes) and have full
time A/C ….. and, the marina people are really nice and helpful. Oh yeah, and
we can take naps!
 |
| Cypress Tree with many knees in Moore Haven, Florida. |
 |
| Paper chart with notes for bridges and locks. |
 |
| Square rigged wooden boat that passed us. |
No comments:
Post a Comment