February 8,2014 Saturday Cayo Costa Island, Pelican Bay

Had a rocking night on the hook, finally calmed down around 4 am and fell asleep, woke up to fog again.  Decided to stay here another day and go over to the Island for a hike.  They said there were good walking trails thru a jungle type environment to the beach on the other side.  So we walked along the trails from 1:30 to 4:30, picked up some sea shells for our little girls and some sand so they can go digging for shells too.  Came back to the boat and mail lunch/super.  We were hungry after our long walk.  Fog had rolled in on the beach side as we were walking and not as much in the bay but was still foggy.  Cool breeze came with the fog and wind blowing but able to paddle our dingy back to our boat and over to BeachQuest for Happy hour and a good visit.  Boat rocking again tonight and swinging on the hook, Curt put the rudder down so our boat isn't going around in circles now.:)  Heading for Cape Coral and Ft Myers tomorrow providing the fog  doesn't get worse in the morning.  Field Trip and Beach Quest heading to Ft. Myers to reprovision before the trip to Marathon Cay. 

 Fog rolling in off and on all morning, our friends boats

 Looking to the south across the bay, quite a few boats have left this morning

 They tell us this is a very popular anchorage, some sailing groups come and just spend the weekend, have a bonfire on the beach at the little island behind the boat above.

 Walking thru the jungle type fauna with sea shells that make up the white path or trails

 It is said that there feral pigs on this island with alligators, and lots of little lizards

 The Mother-in_law tongue was growing wild, they were cutting big areas to try to control it

 This was following the Quarantine Trail to another side of the island, we missed the trail to the Lagoon where we were told Manatees hangout.  Neat shelling place further on down from the Quarantine Station

 Another side of the island, had these purple morning glorys and yellow daisy type flowers, strange for what we had seen so far on our walk

 Moved onto another side of the island where the fauna was changing

 Beach looking out on the Gulf, fog starting to roll in

 Decided to rest after our 3 mile hike and have our water and snack, people in a boat right off shore in front of caught what looked liked a small hammerhead shark, approx. 12 inches long.

 Sand was different here again, lots of seashells which we picked up and put in a bag with some of the sand for our grandkids

 We were sitting there and saw something jumping out of the water, it was stingrays, they had told us they were there the day before, someone had gotten stung.  We've never seen them fly out of the water like this

 Took the cemetery trail and found this small area, neat to see the Conch shells around their grave site in the middle of the island.

 White Egret along shore on the way back

 Looking at our boat from shore.  Fog moving in again for the night.

February 7, 2014 Friday

Left Crow's Nest after saying our good byes, sad we may not see Jeff and Judy for awhile. 11:00 Left with Bob and Martha following soon, nice cloudy day temp in low 60"s, Wind NNW 10kts.  3 bridges to call and have them open for us before we could get out of Venice.  Had a good day of motor sailing made good time, Bob and Martha with Field Trip went thru a bridge opening with us and off they motored ahead and away.
Decided since we were making good time we would anchor at Pelican Bay near Cayo Costa Island with FIeld Trip and finally caught up with BeachQuest, George and Mary.  Had happy hour at Field Trip and caught up with George and Mary.  Good to see them again.

 Little island to the right and Crow's Nest Marina to the left along the shore, wide opening behind the island is the way out to the Gulf of Mexico.

 Crow's nest as we are leaving.

 Anchored with good sunshine left, Beach Quest above and Field Trip below

Febr. 6, 2014 Thursday Venice, Florida

Decided to stay another night here at Crow's Nest.  Bob and Martha went with their friends and after doing chores around the boat all morning we decided to finally do that bike ride we had talked about this early morning.  Jeff a blind guy riding a motorized bike.  He's amazing,  So is Judy, telling him where stop signs are and cars coming, quite an amazing couple. Rode on some off road and bike path, saw their painted dolphins from a fundraiser last year.  Had a great lunch and rode out to Sharky's pier and Restaurant.  Saw them catching fish off the pier and watched the sun start to go down.  Had to ride our bikes back to the boats before dark.  Later went to the beach in the dark with our dock drinks and a bowl of popcorn, we're gonna find shark's teeth for sure with our flashlights.  Waves were slamming against the rocks and spraying up high.  Moon was just enough to make the top of the wave shine before it broke into the white frothy water.  Somehow the water came up under my capris pants get the front and the back wet, also splashed up against me getting the outside wet.  We had a ball looking for shells and shark's teeth by flashlight, found a huge clam shell real thin shell and colorful.  We found cute shells and got soaked, Judy up the side of her shirt but was good to giggle and get wet on the beach.  Went back for a nice warm shower even though the ocean/gulf water felt warm.  Good night sleep once again. 

 Rode our bikes out to Sharky's Restaurant out on the Gulf with a long pier that people could fish off of, these are some of the fish they were pulling in.  They told us the long thin one was a Mackerel, not sure what else.

 Birds were used to getting fed after they cleaned their fish, waiting for fish bait, shrimp.

February 5, 2014 Wednesday NM 85 Long Key Beach

Woke up to fog this morning, our two anchors held during the night and steady.  Sat around waiting for the fog to clear, started the generator, plugged in the computer and worked on the blog etc.  Made French toast out of some bread that needed to be used, topped it with home canned peach sauce with cinnamon and sugar.  Yummy, don't know why we don't do this at home, better and healthier than lots of syrup.  Just about done cleaning up and Attitude Changer called, said they were pulling anchor and heading back up to Brandenton.  Since sun was popping out of the fog, Curt got in the dingy pulled one anchor up, boy did we "swing on the hook" with the one anchor, fog started moving in over the houses and trees from the Gulf, so we decided to pull anchor, dock over at the restaurant we had supper at last night and wait to see what the weather was going to do.  Cleared some out on the Sarasota Bay, so decided we'd take off and see what happens trying to get to Venice to see our friends there.  Went thru a shallow area, popping up the rudder on the way to the ICW.  Got rock and rolled by big boats but also saw dolphins jumping out of their big wake.  Pretty cool even though....12:00Motor sailing with the jib up across Sarasota Bay at about 6 kts. 1300 More Fog!  Got better then worse then better then zero visibility.  Yeah!!!#$@%$#$#  We get to practice using our GPS chart plotter on the boat  and handheld GPS with the auto pilot cause I can't tell which way we're going.  Slowed down, came upon other boats that were going all directions, they turned around and followed us (did they know who they were following?)  Anyway we crept along at slow speed, listening for horns and motors blowing our own fog horn, sometimes going thru a narrow channel where we could see houses or the mangroves on the other side.  Called the dock master at Crow's Nest at Venice and he said oh ya I can see across the inlet here.  So much to my distress (I was driving) and Curt's nagivating assistance we kept going.  Pretty soon we could see two boat lengths ahead (20 ft) and then a little more, soon a motor boat came passing us and it was clearing, the other two behind us followed him and we followed them till they veered off to their destination.  Starting to get foggy again we saw Crow's Nest Marina, happily pulled into our slip, tied up.  Saw Field Trip boat and Just Faken It Boat.  Didn't look like anyone was there so we went for a bike ride to check out Venice and pick up a few supplies from the grocery store.  On our way back, we stopped at the beach and looked our over the Gulf Of Mexico 30 ft and fog  :D  Judy called said where are you guys we're having dock drinks, so we rushed back even thought it was a little past 5pm happy hour and were told to get our drinks and come over to Field Trip.  Got our bottle of wine and found they were sharing a beautiful meal of grilled salmon and vegetables along with shrip sald.  We brought the Greek cheese and tried teaching them how the greek butcher instructed us in detail on sucking on the cheese not chewing it up and swallow.  I don't think they were impressed with our Greek cheese instructions:)  After dinner went over to the restaurant for dessert and a good visit.  So good to catch up to Jeff and Judy and visit.  Good to be in the marina in the fog.

 Boats in the bay anchored in the fog

 Turtles were their theme this year for the fundraiser here at Venice, Florida

 Dolphins from last year.

 Watching the surfers in the Gulf, this is where we went looking for shark's teeth on the beach in the dark

February 4, 2014 Tuesday

 Hisbiscus outside of McDonald's, thought we were in Hawaii for a minute

 Our boat tied up to the McDonald's dock with two other big boats. Those are the ones that swamp us with their waves if they don't slow down.

 Got the McDonald's flag at the end of the dock, we were surprised at the pretty area and how big the dog was across to the right of our dock where Dan had guided us into

 That's how far we had to walk to McDonald's

 The bridge closing after we went thru

 Another bridge opening for us

 Not sure what the pink building was but looked pretty cool

 This was a cruise ship leaving a long ways off in the Tampa Bay

Woke up to fog,  Went to McDonald's for breakfast and worked on the blog.  Fog lifted around 10:30, bright sun shiny day, beautiful spot we have this morning. Skies clear and a cool breeze out of the south, we shoved off, ready to go under the bridge I thought we might hit in the dark last night.  Can't believe how close we were before we turned to meet Dan at the Marina.  Met up with Attitude Changer again, they asked if we wanted to go somewhere for lunch.  We said we were heading to Long Key Beach where there was a good restaurant.  So they said lead the way.  Across  the Tampa Bay.  Thank goodness it was a calm day.  They were happy to do that 10 mile (approx). crossing on a nice day also.  Got gas at Bradenton Beach Marina, not a friend place, won't go there again or recommend them.  Attitude Changer went slowly on and did some trolling for fish while waiting for us.  Another 45 minutes we were at our anchorage and going in to meet them for supper.  Had a good supper and back to the boat, they were kind enough to pull us back with their motored dingy in the dark and windy night.