Friday November 29: Fort Myers, FL - West Coast!

Thanksgiving morning. Planned dinner was crab legs. But we both woke up thinking it should be a more traditional thanksgiving, right?

So Steve hopped on the bike and went back to Winn-Dixie - came back with a cornish hen, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, whipped cream, green beans and onion rings for on the green beans.

It was going to be a regular thanksgiving after all!

The pumpkin pie turned out to be an appetizer about 4 pm (I thought of Aunt Josie as I ate my desert before the meal :-)  ).

The cornish hen (stuffed of course with my Mom's recipe for dressing) turned out great. It was a Thanksgiving feast for sure!

It was a nice day - still windy though - so we went for a ride around some of the neighborhoods in the area. The live oaks are even more in evidence as they close over the top of the roads that wound through the side streets.

An orange tree orchard completed the picture of Florida for us. Not ripe yet but rows and rows of trees.

It was a relaxing morning today as we weren't in a hurry. Only 35 miles to Fort Myers and our intended stop for the night.

The canal of the Okeechobee Waterway has now changed to the Caloosahatchee River. Wider banks but still farmlands.

Gotta love the names of these places!

Steve continued to work on the stainless as we traveled today. I thought using a toothbrush was getting carried away but it actually does a nice job on the small hard to get turnbuckles on the mast stays.

The money of the west coast of Florida began showing itself the further west we traveled.

Still not like the east coast of southern Florida though - at least not yet!


The last lock of the five between the east coast and the west coast was completed today. The weird thing about these locks is that there is no valves to allow the water to enter or exit. The water level is lowered (in this case) by just opening the doors a foot or so! Totally unexpected on the first lock - I thought we were going to be swept away (which of course we were not :-) )

Last challenge of today: picking up a mooring ball in the mooring field off of the Fort Myers Marina.

First I drove us into the mud. Been a long time for that! Tide was coming in, wind was blowing us the right way (to deeper water) so getting off was ok.

Next, after approaching the field from the correct direction, catch the mooring ball which has no line attached to it. I couldn't hold the boat in the same spot due to the winds and currents so Steve had to just let the boat hook go .....

We were finally able to back up to the mooring ball, run a line through the ring, recover the boat hook and get ourselves set for the night.

Biggest challenge in a while. Would have been easier to anchor ..... next time.

This is Fort Myers - above.

Steve waited on the flybridge for the sunset but it was mostly clouds. Maybe tomorrow night!

Should be in Bradenton in a couple of days or so - stop at Terri and Scott's and then off to Ohio for a while.