Monday November 5: Fort Myers

We just have to keep reminding ourselves that this is, after all, a boat!

And we were SO ready to go on Thursday. We had moved out of the condo, turned in the rental car, last minute provisions gathered. Time to head out. Destination was about 5 hours to Cayo Costa - a beautiful state park on the Gulf of Mexico.

100 yards away from the dock and the tachometer went to zero. Voltmeter went to zero. Mmmm  .. alternator belt has slipped again. So much trouble with that thing.

Back to the dock. Back into the hole for Steve :-)

Turns out - after checking with an electrical meter: the alternator is shot! Well, that's never happened before. Good thing we carry a spare one! We weren't sure if it would work but it was worth a try.

Steve worked hard tracing wiring and after a phone call to Brian at American Diesel, was able to figure out how the replacement should be hooked up.

By now it's late Thursday and not so nice weather was due in on Friday so we decided to just spend a couple of more nights at the dock at the storage area.

Yesterday's Dream at the dock.

Finally Saturday we left early and we were in and at the dock at the park by early afternoon. Alternator worked perfectly!

TD Dream at anchor.

Steve trolled all of the way there but no fish. He was sad ....

We spotted our friends formerly from Banana Bay - David and Terri on TD Dream at anchor in the bay just off of our dock.

David and Terri came to the dock by dinghy just in time for docktails on the flybridge. We hadn't seen them in a couple of years so it was fun to be able to catch up. They traveled to the Exumas earlier this year and loved it - fun to hear their stories of the adventure :-)




The wind Saturday night was quite strong from the NW - straight into the small marina here - with enough waves to sink one of the small boats tied up for the night.

Of course Steve went over to check it out and lend a hand if he could. The park ranger came to the rescue with a battery and a 12-volt sump pump which took care of the water pretty quickly.

"We" went kayaking but it was mostly Steve pulling me along! I could get used to kayaking like this :-) But it saved my shoulder from more wear and tear!

The goal was the manatee hole just a bit down the shoreline from the marina.

Lots of manatees around but they just come up, stick their nose out of the water to take a breath and the silently lower back into the water. Not really that much to see!

The alligator on the other hand was quite visible! This is taken with a zoom lens but the wind was definitely blowing me closer than I really wanted to be!

We spent two really nice days at Cayo Costa - Steve made it over to the beach side. It's a really pretty beach and he enjoys walking it.

The storm east of us just barely missed us - we had moved out into the anchorage for the night.

Not much wind ....

Monday was a perfect day to travel the 4 hours to Ft. Myers Beach where we would pick up a mooring ball for the night.

And we were again reminded that it is a boat :-)

Lost the tachometer and voltmeter again. This time the belt broke! No problem - we have one semi on the engine ready to install.

Back in the hole again for Steve as he spent about 30 minutes getting the new belt positioned and tightened. He hopefully discovered the possible cause of all the alternator issues. The bolt holding the adjusting bracket to the engine was a little too long and bottoming out without really being tight enough to secure the bracket when under way.

Off again - with David and Terri standing by in case we had any further troubles. So nice of them ....


Plus they took Steve to the NAPA store once we were in Ft. Myers Beach to pick up a couple of more spare alternator belts.

Can't have TOO many spare belts :-)

Hopefully we'll see Terri and David when they pass through Marathon on their way to the Bahamas in the spring. Boaters are the best people in the world and Terri and David are no exception!!

Marco Island tomorrow - another 5 hour run. Getting close to Banana Bay .....