I wish I had some exotic excuse as to why I have not been blogging. I can say a small part is not being use to using WordPress, especially when it comes to photo’s, but mainly I have just been lazy. We are having a great trip and thoroughly enjoying Jonothon on board. He has been fun and an enormous help. The last time I did blog we had just rodeo across the Florida Bay. We normally would have entered the ICW around Marco Island or Naples but decided to take the time to see Sanibel Island. We have always heard such wonderful things about this unique Island and its wonderful shelling. I guess in our minds it was a long stretch of deserted beach. We were very surprise and quite frankly disapointed when we approached the island and found it to be Condo Row and was swaming with people. We knew that any significant shelling was not going to happen. We also found that the beach was unapproachable from the ocean side, at least this day. We ultimately anchored on the backside of the island to stage to enter the ICW the next day. We entered the ICW at mile marker 0.0. We sailed/motored 36 miles to one our favorite anchorages, Cape Haze.
Sunset in the Gulf
Sunset on the Gulf
Florida Bay Sunset
Jonothon
Cape Haze did not disappoint us. It is a lovely anchorage and just right off the ICW so no time is lost entering the ICW the next morning. Rusty and Jonothon discovered they could take the dinghy up the canel and get to a Publix…..awesome!
Cape Haze
We left Cape Haze early in the morning and we were immediately greeted by playful dolphins. Dolphins are quite common in the ICW but I never get tired of watching them play. Then Jono got the swing set up and spent most of the trip in the swing. It was funny to see the people do a double-take when they see this guy hanging off the side of the boat. This particular part of the ICW has biking and walking trails that go along the side of the ICW……so we had a lot of lookers…lol.
Jono chillin down the ICW
We stopped early to check out this park at the Venice Inlet. It was very nice with a lot of people either fishing or just sitting out in lawn chairs. The weather has been gorgeous and the people are out even during the week. We beached SYL and tied her to a tree and just walked around. As we were leaving Jono pointed out that the tree we were tied to was actually two trees. A palm tree had another tree grow almost completely around it.
A Tree that has Grown around a palm tree.
Red Neck Point....and Proud of It!
There was another little island across from Red Neck Point and one you could only reach by boat. It had a lot less traffic so we headed over there to anchor for the night.. It was a great spot. There was a picnic table right in front of the boat. Rusty and Jono got it all set up, built a fire and watched a movie on the sail. I am still concerned about no-seeums so I stayed in the boat.
We got up early the next day and sailed to Egmont Key. Most of Egmont is a bird sanctuary. Egmont Key has deep water near shore. It is a lovely anchorage in the right conditions. Rusty and Jono went on shore and did some shelling and they found sea glass. Jono was hooked. He loves shelling and looking for sea glass. We like Egmont so much we decided to stay. After a two day stay we headed to Clearwater.