Moss Marine

We left the anchorage at Cabbage Key this morning (1-24-09) and headed south to Ft Myers Beach.

Here's our slip at Moss Marine

Cabbage Key

We cleaned the frost off the dinghy this morning and took it into Cabbage Key for breakfast.

We were the only ones there, so we got our host / server / cook / cashier's full attention. (all the same guy)

He'd been on the island 11 days straight. He said he heard we had a new president.

I looked behind my chair, and almost fell out of it. Look who left dollar bills on the wall.

We exchanges stories with our server, and asked if he knew if the tunnel of luv was still there after the hurricane. He and some kayaker buddies of his had cleaned it out, and made it passable. He said while they were working in the mangroves they saw an 11' alligator. I think he said that just to keep the traffic down.

After breakfast, we climbed the water tower.

And walked through the nature path.

Tunnel of Luv

Later today, we went out in search of the tunnel of luv.

The tides here are very low, so even high tide is low.

Pam got stuck in the dinghy.

I walked up to the entrance to the tunnel of luv, but it was too shallow for us to get through. Maybe if we had a kayak we might have made it.

On the way back to the boat, I stopped to fish on the other side of Cabbage key. I hooked a couple of snooks. Managed to get a small one back to the boat, but the larger one got away.

I caught 6 snooks today. That's more than I caught all year in Indiana.

Later, we circumnavigated Useppa Island.

I'm going to take my computer in the dinghy, and get close to Useppa to see if I can jump on someone's wifi.

P.S. That didn't work. Several people have wifi--but they are all secured with passwords that I have been unable to guess. We'll probably head south tomorrow. We've only made about 4 miles south in the past 4 days.

Here's the sunset over Cabbage Key. That's the most clouds we've seen today.

Cabbage Key Anchorage

Left Burnt Store about 2 pm, and headed across Charlotte Harbor. Really like B.S. but time to move on.

We anchored about 4 pm between Useppa and Cabbage Key. Some of you have been to Cabbage Key with us.

We plan to go over to Cabbage Key for breakfast tomorrow, so I got the dinghy down off the roof this evening. I thought since it was already in the water, I would go over to Argay's secret redfish hole near Useppa. I could only go for a short time, so I didn't take my boca grip, my tackle box, or anything but my fishing pole. And Pam. When I casted into the secret redfish spot, wham! Fish on ! Screaming drag.................jumps, etc etc.

I got him back to the dinghy, and managed to grab him with my hand. A large SNOOK. I laid my paddle alongside him and made a mark on the paddle. When I measured later, it was a 27" snook. I hooked another one, but couldn't get him to the dinghy. Since I didn't take any extra stuff, I did not have the camera. But I did have Pam to testify. It's all true isn't it Pam?

Yes, it's all true, signed Pam.

Leaving Burnt Store

SAILORS GONE BAD

I already mentioned that the pirate Argay has gotten hooked on power boats.

Here's yet another sailor gone bad. John Hammond bought a Catalina 38' sailboat from us when we owned Sailboats Inc.

He named it "Delfina" and moved it to Burnt Store Marina a few years ago. We walked over to his slip, and found the new "Delfina."

We are in a transient slip in front of the restaurant. We're not the biggest boat in this photo.

We're leaving Burnt Store today, and heading out to anchor near Cabbage Key. We most likely will not have access to email soon.

Some of you a probably happy to hear that.

Burnt Store

We had a great dinner last night with Don and Michelle. Don was kind enough to bring us back to our boat in his suburban so we didn't have to ride our bikes back in the cool weather. As a matter of fact, it was quite cool last night--this is frost on our dinghy.

Today, Pam found her old pal Chico. We met Chico on our first visit to Burnt Store in 1997. He's the marina cat, and dock boys catch fish for him at the fuel dock, and Chico eats them as soon as they're off the hook. Fresh fish !

I'm including a photo especially for those of you who live in the "cloud belt." Down here they call this "Sky".

I know you haven't seen it up there lately, so if you'd like, you can enlarge this photo, and tape it over your windows.

Burnt Store

We got into Burnt Store Marina about 11:00, showered, washed the salt off the boat, and rode our bikes around to see how things have changed.

We ran into Denny and Cathy Frye. Also some sailors gone bad. Their boat is a Saberline 36--a little nicer than ours.