Day 157: Friday, February 8, 2013

Port to Port: Fort Myers Beach

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 0      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First Chinese buffet of trip – very good deal.

Mile to Mile: We were signed up to help load and unload boxes of books this morning so we walked down to the library to get a ride to the storage building. The tasks went very quickly and we soon had the truck filled, driven back to the library and unloaded before 11 am. They only have 15 more loads to go. We stopped at a nearby Chinese buffet recommended by Boomerang and walked home to clean the boat.

It is amazing how much stuff wants to grow on the bottom of the boat – especially in areas without bottom paint. We will probably have to have the bottom scraped before we leave but I wanted to get the ugly stuff off and clean the water line so we don’t look like a derelict boat. We scrubbed the deck and cockpit and were soon bright and shiny again.

The pressure is building to get ready to move again. Someone has already rented our slip so we have to find a new home. We are planning to spend a week in Fort Myers before heading through Lake Okeechobee and on to Stuart. This is the normal intracoastal route and it makes more sense for us to go this way than all the way to the Keys and back up – the route down is unprotected and remote and might be a little tricky for our size boat. We hope to have time to rent a car and drive to the Keys and explore for a few days after we get to the east coast.

Have I mentioned the weather has been amazing. We had a front move through yesterday and we got a little rain overnight but woke to a beautiful sunrise and warm temps again this morning. We’ve been very lucky so far this trip.