Jan 31. We take a little cruise

Jan 31

End of the month update.  We just got back from a couple days of cruising with fellow loopers Jamie and Trish on “About Time”. They’re from St. Augustine and we originally met them way back at the spring rendezvous in Norfolk, VA when they were docked in the slip next to us.   Since then we’ve hopscotched back and forth with different itineraries but always seem to be within a relatively short distance of each other.  They arrived at Ft. Myers Yacht Basin and docked just a few slips away. Decided it would be fun to take a couple days and head back down to Cayo Costa to anchor out and then spend a night at Tween Waters Marina on Captiva Island.


Wed. 1/29 we fired up the boats and headed down the Caloosahatchee River at first light.  It’s a 40 mile run with several no wake zones and we wanted to get there early enough to get anchored and do some exploring with the dingy. 

Sunrise over the marina as we prep for departure

 When we stopped at Cayo Costa the last time we anchored for 4 days and never got off the boat due to the strong wind and wave action. So, we were anxious to finally go exploring.   Jamie has a 4-person hard bottom dingy with a 15HP Honda which will actually plane – much faster and more user friendly than my little dink with it’s 2.5hp motor.  We used it to find a hidden passage through the mangroves called the “Tunnel of Love”.

Pushing our way through the mangroves

 It eventually leads to a desolate beach on the gulf side of the island.  The trip through the ‘tunnel” was amazing as we pushed and motored our way down a shallow and narrow channel with mangrove branches encircling us and snook scurrying amongst the mangrove roots.  We finally came to an opening, located the small sandy clearing that leads to the beach, and landed the dingy.   Gorgeous white sandy beach loaded with tons of shells waiting to be scavenged.  Much bigger and better selection than we saw at Sanibel simply because these never get picked over.  The sun was out and gave the water that spectacular turquoise blue color reminiscent of the Bahamas.  

Deserted beach on south end of Cayo Costa

 We headed back to the boats to prep for a delicious steak dinner aboard “About Time”. Clouds had moved in and rain was forecast for overnight.  Our luck didn’t hold out and it started raining just as we dingyed over to them. Rain and lighting gave us a show as we ate and drank.

Jamie firing up the grill as the rain pours down

Once it eased up and after finishing a few bottles of wine we headed back to “As You Wish” with several inches of fresh rainwater sloshing around in our dingy.  We counted 22 boats in the anchorage and there was still plenty of room for many more. It really is a spectacular place.


Thurs 1/30 was our turn to host a meal with Jamie and Trish coming over for sausage, waffles and fresh strawberries. Yes, I know, we’re really roughing it with meals like these on our trip.  We started the day with an outing to the Cayo Costa State Park landing dock. The only way to visit this island park is by boat and there are smaller excursion boats bringing tourists for the day from Punta Gorda and Captiva Island. From the landing a “tram” (i.e. - pickup truck hooked to a couple of open trailers) takes you across the island to the beach side.  This is the north end of the island and after seeing our private beach at the south end we were a bit disappointed.  We walked back to the landing – working off those steaks and waffles.  From there we dingyed further south to a passage that leads to a lake  in the middle of the island.   Couple of fishing boats scouting the place out.  We spotted a 6’ alligator basking on a bank in the sun.  As we passed one of the fishing boats and mentioned the alligator – they said “no problem – you're  the smallest boat and closest to the water so would be the first to go”!!

GATOR!!  

 The next stop on our dingy ride was Cabbage Key for lunch.  The Cabbage Key Inn has been around since 1944.  The restaurant was built on the high ground on the island which turned out to be an ancient Indian shell mound.  The cheeseburgers here were supposedly the inspiration  for Jimmy Buffets classic song “Cheeseburger in Paradise”. Tourists have been taping dollar bills to the doors, walls,  and ceilings for years to the point that there are now several layers of dollar bills in places.  We added ours to the collection after enjoying – what else – a cheeseburger. 

Cabbage Key Inn

Cheeseburger in Paradise 

Dollars cover every available surface - sometimes 3 to 4 bills deep!

We leave our mark

 Then it was back to the boats as we still needed to cruise over to Tween Waters Marinas on Captiva Island.  A short 2 hour cruise but we needed to wait for the right tide time since our charts show only 4-5’ at low tide.   Tween Water is a resort dating back to the 30’s.  Historic cottages dating back to those days are named after some of the celebrities of the day who routinely visited such as Anne Morrow Lindbergh (wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh) and our naturalist buddy from Sanibel Island fame – “Ding” Darling.  The sunset over the gulf from the cottages are a glorious burst of colors.

Late day sunset pictures over the gulf coast at Captiva Island

  We met up with our looper buddy boaters Russ and Jax from “Cat and Dogs” who were on their first excursion with their new boat “InQuest”.  Seems like they have most of the upgrades completed they wanted done to the boat since we last saw them back at Longboat Key and are ready to get back cruising again.  One of the reasons for docking at Tween Waters Marina was to watch the Thursday night crab races they host at the Crows Nest Bar and Grill on site.  It was an absolute hoot!  Child friendly races at 6 and adult races at 9.   It’s a very participative event and somehow, I got nominated to be the keeper of the sound effects machine and also blow the conch shell to begin the activities.  

Trying my hand at blowing  the conch horn

Let the crab races begin!!

Apparently if you ever played a musical horn instrument you know how to properly pucker up and blow to sound a conch.  Having never done that my attempt was fodder for a good laugh.  Overall, a fun and entertaining evening.  


Jan 31.  Another early start as we had to catch the early outgoing tide.  Mixed results – we got out of the marina fine but the timing put us working against the tide for the trip back to Ft Myers.   Pretty uneventful except for a handful of really obnoxious boaters who simply have no comprehension or concern for the wake their big boats throw out.  Back in our slip by lunchtime.  Another big festival this weekend downtown. “Art Walk” already has the streets blocked off and vendors setting up.  We may sign up for a few more days here after our month is done to figure out where we’re going next. Thought we were committed to crossing the lake but new forces are at play working to persuade us that we should do the keys route.  Only time will tell – stay tuned.

Our 3 days of travel out and back