Nov 27 - 29 Keys to Everglades to Sarasota
The trip from the Florida Keys to Sarasota is about 200 miles.
The first 40 miles is in very shallow water in the Florida Keys. We were told the "yacht channel" was plenty deep enough for us and the chart showed 7 feet... but we never saw over 5 feet and often close to 4 feet! We had to motor very slowly, prepared to stop quickly if we touched bottom. After about 5 hours of this (never again!) we got into "deep" water of 8 feet and headed for the recommended anchorage within the Everglades National Park on the Little Shark River. Several guides had suggested this anchorage as a unique wilderness area far from any city or town. We would be out of range of cell phone and email with only our Ham radio as our link to civilization (not counting the 200 channels of satellite television). We would be able to see amazing bird life and the occasional alligator. Some of the guides even footnoted that it could be "buggy". What an understatement! We loved the wilderness feel-- but the no-see-ums were deadly! We started the evening only opening windows that had screens not realizing the bugs could squeeze through the screen holes... by the time we closed all the windows and turned on the air conditioning we had thousands of these teeny bugs inside with us. Even though we coated ourselves with bug spray they kept biting us. We only got a few hours sleep and by about 3am we were sipping coffee, killing bugs, and waiting for dawn to be on our way. Definitely the worst anchorage of our trip!
The second leg of the trip was quite different! The water is over 20 feet deep and the course leads about 20 miles offshore to miss the shoals south of Cape Romano. We were no longer on the ICW always in sight of land and following from buoy to buoy. Instead we were out of sight of land and plotting our own course. It felt great!
We cruised along at 10 knots for 9 hours and only saw two other boats in the distance. It was exciting to arrive at South Seas Plantation Resort on Captiva Island and tie up at the marina among the palm trees. This was one of our kids' favorite marinas in the early 90's when we would sail down all night from Sarasota and enjoy the resort's trolley, pools, beach, and restaurants. The resort had been badly damaged a few years ago in the hurricane but has come back nicely. We shared Pina Coladas at the bar then enjoyed a great dinner in one of their restaurants and settled back aboard for a bug-less sleep!
Our last day was quite nostalgic-- we'd done this route many times in our sailboat and we knew this was the final day of our voyage from Newport. The sky was clear and the water was flat. We were about 10 miles offshore and no other boats in sight. We set the autopilot and took turns getting our bags packed and dead bugs cleaned up. Within 5 hours we could see the skyline of Sarasota on the horizon.
We'll put together some of our final thoughts on the trip in a few days when things have settled down... but for now we are happy to be home in Sarasota. We cruised from October 10th to November 29th with 12 days off in the middle for business -- 5-6 weeks of actual cruising traveling almost 2,000 miles! A dream fulfilled!
The trip from the Florida Keys to Sarasota is about 200 miles.
The first 40 miles is in very shallow water in the Florida Keys. We were told the "yacht channel" was plenty deep enough for us and the chart showed 7 feet... but we never saw over 5 feet and often close to 4 feet! We had to motor very slowly, prepared to stop quickly if we touched bottom. After about 5 hours of this (never again!) we got into "deep" water of 8 feet and headed for the recommended anchorage within the Everglades National Park on the Little Shark River. Several guides had suggested this anchorage as a unique wilderness area far from any city or town. We would be out of range of cell phone and email with only our Ham radio as our link to civilization (not counting the 200 channels of satellite television). We would be able to see amazing bird life and the occasional alligator. Some of the guides even footnoted that it could be "buggy". What an understatement! We loved the wilderness feel-- but the no-see-ums were deadly! We started the evening only opening windows that had screens not realizing the bugs could squeeze through the screen holes... by the time we closed all the windows and turned on the air conditioning we had thousands of these teeny bugs inside with us. Even though we coated ourselves with bug spray they kept biting us. We only got a few hours sleep and by about 3am we were sipping coffee, killing bugs, and waiting for dawn to be on our way. Definitely the worst anchorage of our trip!The second leg of the trip was quite different! The water is over 20 feet deep and the course leads about 20 miles offshore to miss the shoals south of Cape Romano. We were no longer on the ICW always in sight of land and following from buoy to buoy. Instead we were out of sight of land and plotting our own course. It felt great!
We cruised along at 10 knots for 9 hours and only saw two other boats in the distance. It was exciting to arrive at South Seas Plantation Resort on Captiva Island and tie up at the marina among the palm trees. This was one of our kids' favorite marinas in the early 90's when we would sail down all night from Sarasota and enjoy the resort's trolley, pools, beach, and restaurants. The resort had been badly damaged a few years ago in the hurricane but has come back nicely. We shared Pina Coladas at the bar then enjoyed a great dinner in one of their restaurants and settled back aboard for a bug-less sleep!
Our last day was quite nostalgic-- we'd done this route many times in our sailboat and we knew this was the final day of our voyage from Newport. The sky was clear and the water was flat. We were about 10 miles offshore and no other boats in sight. We set the autopilot and took turns getting our bags packed and dead bugs cleaned up. Within 5 hours we could see the skyline of Sarasota on the horizon.
We'll put together some of our final thoughts on the trip in a few days when things have settled down... but for now we are happy to be home in Sarasota. We cruised from October 10th to November 29th with 12 days off in the middle for business -- 5-6 weeks of actual cruising traveling almost 2,000 miles! A dream fulfilled!
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