Winter in the Cape – Part 2

Flying Home

One of the things I miss when I’m down south in the winter is my family & friends up north. I was flying home and my Dad was one of the first people I saw.

Family

My Mom has been gone six years now but my Dad like to visit her grave everyday to feel closer to her.

Friends

Catching up with friends was next on the list.

Good friends of mine have a camp in Maine and invited me to go snowmobiling up north. Luckily they had extra skimobile gear and a sled for me to ride. I had a blast.

Sadly it was time to say goodbye to Dad for now and hop a flight back to MV Simple Life.

Spin’s Boston Whaler

Before I had left to fly north, we had been traveling around the state of Florida looking at different boats together as well as spending time discussing pros and cons of each style of boat. The shallow canals around SW Cape Coral are better suited for shallow draft boats with outboard engines that can be tipped up. Speed is also desireable as trips to Sanibel and Captiva Island or Fort Myers Beach can be done in a hour with speed.

Back in Cape Coral, Mike had purchased a new boat. Mike chose a beautiful Boston Whaler Outrage 32′ with twin 275 Mercs. The only thing to do now was go boating!All smilesShe can giddy upIt’s cold at 30ktsGood view of the whole boat

Tween Waters Resort & Spa – Captiva Island

One boating trip was to Tween Water Resort & Spa on Captiva Island.

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Tween waters is a fun destination and one that I would eventually take MV Simple Life to and found the anchorage just deep enough for my keel with maybe 2-3 inches under the keel at low tide. Note there was a much smaller but deeper anchorage where the trawler was in the picture above but it was not very far off shoals, hence the stern anchor deployed by the trawler.

Funky Fish House Debacle

Well January was coming to an end and I needed a new place to keep my boat. Turns out that every place I called was booked solid. Cape Coral is a busy boating destination. I was lucky enough to have a friend who called a friend and she was nice enough to offer me her dock at the Funky Fish Houses. These houses are cool multicolored canal homes that look like they belong in the Bahamas.

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Unfortunately for me, I misunderstood the directions of “…go to the end of the orange tape and you’ll find a 25′ dock to tie up at.”. That meant I tied my boat to the wrong dock and within 24 hours I got a call from the Cape Coral PD about my boat being tied to a private dock. I explained that I had permission to tie from the owner but in the end it turned out I was about 200′ in the wrong direction. It was Super Bowl Sunday and the game had just started but instead cracking a beer, I was racing back to my boat to move it ASAP to appease the unhappy Fish House owner. After that embarrassing mishap I felt I had better just find a marina somewhere else. I called and called and called until I finally found a slip for only 2 nights at Tarpon Point Marina.

Tarpon Point Marina

Tarpon Point Marina was alluring as it was attached to the Westin hotel. There were two great restaurants onsite

1. Marker 92 Restaurant
2. Pincher’s Crab Shack

The morning that my two night stay was up, had a visitor. Carl Bush showed up for coffee and a chat. It was great to get to meet Carl after emailing back and forth for so long. Funny that everywhere I go around Cape Coral … I seem to keep bumping into people I know. Oh almost forgot… Thanks for the IPAs, Carl 😉

Having to leave Tarpon Point because my two night reservation was up had me again calling every marina I could find in Cape Coral for my next slip assignment. I struck out and was forced to move the boat to FMB. While Fort Myers Beach is a desirable location it put me quite far away from all my new friends I had made.

FMB – Salty Sams Marina

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Not My Marina

With no slip space available in Cape Coral I called every marina I could find in the Fort Myers area. I was excited when I found a marina in North Fort Myers that said I could rent a slip for an entire month. I plotted a course to this new marina and upon arrival I was not impressed.

Many of the boats in this marina looked as if they had not left the marina in years. I decided as desperate as I was to find a home for MV Simple Life… this was not it.

Dishearted, I had to back MV Simple Life up along the wall to deeper water and depart to find yet another destination.

Fort Myers Yacht Basin

Back in the Caloosahatchee River I happened to call Fort Myers Yacht Basin who told me it was my lucky day as they had a yacht just leave and I could have their slip for the next month.

This marina is right in downtown Fort Myers and close to many restaurants as well as the parades that seem take over the downtown each weekend.

Mobility

So I used to have electric bikes that I loved but they wound up at the bottom of the ocean. You’ll have to buy me an IPA to hear that story. I needed something that when I anchored or docked in port I could use to explore the land. It should be small and light enough that I can easily place it in and out of the dinghy as well as store inside the boat. The pair of electric bikes were great but the chains rusted on my flydeck and they were beasts to put in and out of the dinghy.

Segway Scooters are for Cool Kids

I took this picture while scooting around Fort Myers Centennial Park along the Caloosahatchee River. These scooters are perfect. They roll along at 18MPH for a rider up to 320lbs and have a 40 mile range. I’d say 30 miles for sure but the charger is built-in so simply bring along the power cord and plug in at the bar. I used to Uber everywhere … now I scoot to the grocery store or local watering hole.

Did I mention that Fort Myers has a local IPA called High 5 and it’s terrific?

I used the time at the marina to repair my dinghy engine. I had a fuel leak and tracked it down to a corroded high pressure fuel filter (yes, my Tohatsu 25HP dinghy engine is fuel injected).

One morning I awoke to some sort of medical emergency on the boat behind me.

Apparently the woman had a heart attack and her husband performed CPR until the 1st responders came to save the day. Happily, the woman made a recovery and returned to the boat making everyone smile.

I took Simple Life to Captiva Island one day and it was a beautiful day for a cruise.

I stopped and anchored on the Miserable Mile as the locals call it. This section at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River is a no wake manatee zone and all the boat traffic jams up. There is an anchorage just off this section of channel and is fun to watch the boat traffic as they pass.

I learned that this stretch of canal is often referred to as the Miserable Mile for its slow speed but the real original Miserable Mile is about a mile further west where the channel is narrow with cross currents and shallows on both sides. Sailors aptly named this westward stretch of channel due to the cross currents that would try to push them onto shoals as they tacked their way down the narrow canal.

It did not take long for Spin and crew to show up and the party started. Three other boats were now rafted off Simple Life as she sat on anchor.

In a few days Preppy was flying in and we’d be leaving Fort Myers for Key West. This board should help me find my way back to my new friends next winter.