Just Catching Up

Well folks, it's been about 1 year to the day since my last post and a lot has changed in our lives and in our plans for the future of "D & D's Sailing Adventures. But, first a little bit of catching up is warranted:
In my last post we left off at the Little Shark River on our trek back to Burnt Store Marina on Charlotte Harbor. We had planned to repeat in reverse, our trip down by stopping at the inlet to Everglades City for the night, then on to home with a brief stop-over in Naples. Our night on the hook in Little Shark was mostly uneventful. It was a beautiful evening with a gorgeous sunset, but we had our first serious encounter with the dreaded "no-see-ums". Actually, I saw them---they were everywhere. We retreated to the relative protection of our cabin with screens up (which seemed to do the trick, except that a number of the little buggers had already found the boat's interior and were awaiting our arrival.) The worst part, however, was the next morning. Those that had arrived, uninvited I must add, decided to hang around on the boat with us most of the next day--in the cockpit---How they managed to stay with us despite the breeze is unknown, but stay they did. They continued to fly into my eyes and bedevil us with their little pin-prick bites most of the day even while underway. As I said--this was truly our first encounter with these pests and we found all the stories about them to be quite true---they are ANNOYING!!!
We weighed anchor early AM and found that we made such good time motorsailing
in fairly benign conditions that we passed up on Everglades City and sailed straight to Naples, arriving about 2 hours before dark. Unfortunately we arrived at the mouth of Gordon Pass, the waterway into the Naples area, against a very strong out-going current that was seeking low tide. Being aware that the waters in this area are quite shallow, especially at low tide, we were very anxious as we wound our way through this very tricky, curvy channel. Fortunately we were able to follow a slightly larger boat in and took some comfort that he drew probably more water than we did. The current against us was unreal but we were able to power through it and made the first available left turn into a residential area around a dredged canal system into a fairly large lake- like body of water surrounded by multi- million dollar homes. We dropped anchor near another boat and settled in for the night--barbecued chicken in the cockpit--as we sipped our boat drinks, watched another beautiful sunset and relaxed after a very long day at sea. What a contrast--last night on the litle Shark with nothing but water, trees and stars (oh yeah--and no-see-ums). Tonight, surrounded by oppulance with a remarkable absence of bugs---of any kind. We concluded that the City of Naples has successfully figured out how to completely eliminate all flying insects---a tourist thing--We just wish that they'd share their secret with the rest of Florida (Who knows what kinds of toxic chemicals in the air we were breathing). It was a another magical evening. After boat drinks and a bottle of really good red wine even Diane gathered the nerve to shower on deck in full view of all the mansions around us (It was dark and we had determined that most of the homes were empty). We did feeel a bit conspicuous anchored in this location as we had heard many stories about inhospitable land owners claiming ownership of the navigable waters off their shores and shooing away boaters. But we had no problem and spent a cool comfortable, bug free evening on the hook.
The next day was completely unremarkable as, once again, we motorsailed (most of the way) back north in the direction of Carlotte Harbor. We had expected to only get as far as Ft Myers beach but, again, made such good time that we were able to make it all the way back to Burnt Store Marina, arriving around 6 PM to a welcome from our good friends, the Kiefers--Chuck and Nancy --and our next boat neighbor, Pete Kellum. We spent the next few days cleaning the boat, renting a car and getting things in order for our return to the hum drum life "on the hard".
We arrived back in Kingwood around the first of May and resumed normalcy (after repairing a cracked water main that our "professional" plumber forgot to drain when we winterized the house back in December, and cleaned the slimy, nasty, green algae from our neglected pool.) Fortunately, the house, overall was in great shape and we found our transition back to suburban life fairly smoothe.
So, here we are ---a year later and many, many changes have occurred in our lives, which, I'm sure, most of you know about but which will be addressed in my next posting.
I think Diane summed up our 5 month Odyssey fairly well in her last post. This trip was everything and more than I expected it to be---all in a very good and positive way. We had some fabulous sailing, met terrific people, learned a lot about our boat and, especially, ourselves, visited some incredibly beautiful places, thrived in the beauty and solitude and quiet of many anchorages--learned how to "conch", learned that one can successfully navigate unfamiliar waters even without a properly functioning chart plotter and auto-helm, and perhaps most importantly, we learned that the men, ages 45 to 65, of southeast Florida very generously and selflessly enjoy taking their darker skinned, incredibly beautiful, younger nieces out on their great big boats for a day's fun on the water--and that the nieces enjoy hanging off the bow like a figurehead so all the world can also, like their loving uncles, appreciate their qualities.
Seriously, I know when I'm sitting around the halls of the real "Assisted Living" Center many, I hope, years from now, I'll still be reminiscing about this incredible journey. It is quite easy to conclude that it, in every way, exceeded my wildest expectations and I can't wait to do it again!