A Week to remember

Start of a big week in that we have the family flying in to gather and celebrate Pat Reimann’s 90th Birthday. We have the grand plan of flying Pat, escorted by our daughter Lisa, down to visit her Applewood friend for a few days and then cruise to Captiva Island later in the week to celebrate her 90th Birthday. Week started out pretty windy so we opted to spend an extra day at Marina Jack in Sarasota.

Cruised from Sarasota to Venice with Lisa and stayed at the Venice Yacht Club. Although this particular club doesn’t have reciprocity with SCYC, we provided a letter of introduction from our club secretary and were allowed privileges. It’s been great to have access to the various yacht clubs for dockage. Finding dockage has been a challenge with the number of Loopers cruising this year. There are 521 registered with AGLCA and we are all in FL for the winter, cruising and looking for dockage, so we have been thankful for the Yacht Clubs and our reciprocity.

Most of the docks we’ve stayed at are “fixed” docks, which means they don’t float when the tides go up and down. So we have to be aware that there’s enough slack in the lines for when the tides change. Every morning we woke to the sailboats moored here and saw how they “leaned” on the bottom at low tide. We were at an end tie of a T dock here and that is a lot easier to dock than at than a slip. Docking in a new place each time causes us to be “on alert”. As we receive docking instructions from the marina on Ch 16, it can be a lot for Ron to process as you are navigating tide, other boats, current and wind while figuring out what the heck slip they are talking about. Some marinas have maps and offer assistance at the dock with tying up and that’s always appreciated but you can’t count on either. Then there is the business of stern-in or bow-in, and whether to deploy any fenders and where to have lines at the ready before landing at the dock. Nancy handles these tasks while Ron is at the bridge. Finally, we both put on wireless headsets so we can talk to each other in a “normal” voice while communicating instructions and status during docking maneuvers.

This club had a lovely restaurant, pool, tiki bar and loaner bikes. We used the bikes to go to town where there were shops and restaurants all housed in “Italian style” buildings.

Cruising to Captiva

We stayed on the Intercoastal and cruised to Captiva Island with our crew of Pat and Lisa. On the intercoastal, there is no speed limit and little courtesy is given when passing, not such thing as a “slow” pass and many boats not too concerned about their wake. With the designated “Minimum Wake Zones” and our average cruising speed of 8 mph to maximize fuel economy, it took about six hours to travel the 46.5 miles to South Seas, and about 42 gallons of diesel.

Birthday Celebration at South Seas

It was a little tricky coming in off the channel to South Seas from the Intercoastal, the intercoastal is not marked as clearly as the rivers with the reds and the greens, we found one dog-leg turn in particular to be surprisingly narrow but doable. When we pulled into the marina we were surprised to find Afton Marina neighbors, the boats “Cynthia” and “Wine Seller” were both docked on the same dock as us! These weren’t their MN boats but their FL versions with the same name.

Cabbage Key Luncheon Cruise

Birthday Dinner at the Harborside Restaurant

Hanging at the Resort

Here is a summary of our December boat travels