Downtown Fort Myers

I had been waiting for a good friend of mine, Preppy to fly into Fort Myers. That day has arrived. As soon as he had stowed his bag in the guest stateroom we dropped the Segway scooters on the dock and it was to explore downtown Fort Myers. First stop… Ford’s Garage for a burger and some IPAs.

Ford’s Garage’s bar has a beer cooling feature that I had never seen. It’s a refrigerated chill plate the runs the whole length of the bar. The bartenders and customers place their schooner beer glass on the chill plate to keep their drinks cold. The humid Florida air has the effect of creating a layer of frost on the chill plate that makes a great low friction, melted frost, beer spinning activity. I felt some strange addiction to spinning my IPA. Like a fidget spinner but for an IPA.

Fort Myers Beach

A day after Preppy arrived and my slip rental at Fort Myers Yacht Basin has come to an end. I need to push on to Key West and eventually start making my journey back home to RI. Schedules in long-range transient boating rarely work due to issues with weather, repairs, etc. You must plan to have downtime.

Preppy & I got a late start leaving Fort Myers and made a short cruise to Salty Sam’s in FMB for the night. Fort Myers Beach is a fun location and it was time to put the dink in the water and go out for some drinks. First stop… Matanzas Inn.

Back aboard, Preppy wasted no time cooking up Bubba burgers with peppers & onions on buttered buns.

Naples Not Marco Island

We were planning on stopping in Marco Island as a HS friend has a place there and I thought it might be nice to ping her and see if she and husband could meet up for a drink. However, the weather and Covid-19 were not making that a reality.

We decided that we would come in from the Gulf at the Naples inlet and find a place to anchor inside for a day or two until the weather settled. The inlet was rough with breakers on both sides but once inside it was peaceful. We motored all the way into downtown Naples searching for a marina or anchorage deep enough to hold Simple Life’s 5′ draft. Repeatedly we ran into shallows at each anchorage we attempted. With no open slips at marinas either, I thought we’d have to go back out the Naples inlet into a lumpy gulf of Mexico and forge on to Marco Island? However, there was one last anchorage just inside the inlet. Our anchorage of last resort turned out to be safe haven.

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This Naples anchorage was peaceful and turned out to the first of two stops along our route to Key West.

Shark River in the Everglades

When we left Naples we set a course directly for the Lower Keys and ultimately, Key West. I have read that Marathon is defined as the “Middle Keys” between Key Largo in the “Upper Keys” and Key West in the “Lower Keys”. The wind was 20+kts out of the East with gusts much higher. The path I had chosen took us quite some distance from the shore and thus gave the wind more water to blow across (properly referred to as “fetch” or the distance traveled by wind or waves across open water). The larger the fetch, the taller the waves. We needed to seek out smaller waves as taking large waves on our beam was not enjoyable. So we decided to make a 90′ turn to port and run head-on into the waves till we were closer to shore before turning southward again. This also meant that we were going to have to anchor somewhere along the shore rather than our original plan to make it to Key West before nightfall.

The depths were shallow for a long way in as we approached the Little Shark River anchorage just north of Cape Sable. We found a sailboat anchored here and chatted a bit on the VHF as we dropped anchor. A friendly couple who told us she was local to the Everglades area and he was from Alaska. They said they spend quite a bit of time in this particular anchorage.

The next morning we ran south down the coast till the southern edge of Cape Sable. At this point it was advantageous to do another 90 degree turn, this time to starboard and put the now increasing waves on our stern. The rest of the trip down the lower keys was spent with a following sea.

Caldera or Northwest Channel?

We were looking to get out of the following sea and into Key West. I decided to take the narrow and winding Calda Channel which I had successfully navigated in 2018. It’s much faster to take this channel then have to continue west till you get to the larger, much deeper Northwest Channel. The NW Channel is used by the Key West Express high speed ferries that run between Fort Myers Beach or Marco Island and Key West.

Big waves and shallow water are not a captains friend. Still traversing the Calda Channel would shave off over an hour of travel. However, we only made it to the first Green #1 Daymark before we slowly ran aground. The shallow water alarm is set at 6′ and it was blaring away. I backed up and attempted to poke the bow around to see if I could find deeper water and a path further into Calda Channel. No luck! We had to spin in the wind & waves and make our way further west to the official Northwest Channel. (see picture below)

As we entered the proper Key West Northwest Channel we found plenty of water and a wide easy to navigate channel (pictured below)

There are two ways into Key West.

1. Key West Main Channel as it is called which comes in from Hawk’s Channel which runs the whole south side of the Florida Keys.

2. The NorthWest Channel that comes in from the inside of the Lower Keys or Gulf of Mexico.

As we approached the end of the NW Channel where it meets the Key West Main Channel we saw the cruise ship which is often docked in port. It was March 9th and Covid-19 virus infections were increasing in each US state. We could only guess that the people we saw on the room balconies were crew disinfecting rooms and not passengers?

Wisteria Island

Now in the main channel we are passing Tank & Wisteria Islands (pictured above on left side of Key West). All around Wisteria Island is the Key West Anchorage and the boats here are mostly permanent liveaboards. Sadly, their boats are often lost to frequent hurricanes ex. Wilma, Irma, etc. Many who homes got sunk moved onto Wisteria Island and setup tents to live. There is a legal battle about who owns Wisteria Island and if it is dangerous. I have wanted to dinghy over to the island but have never done so yet. What is the truth about this island? Is it safe? IDK

When you motor through the anchorage you will be amused at how creative some are with building floating log cabins or sheds to hold the things they need. It reminds me of the 1995 movie Waterworld.

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I had called several marinas and finally booked a 10 day reservation at Sunset Marina on Stock Island. Stock Island is the first island as you leave Key West.

Sunset Marina

Nobody from the marina was there to catch our lines but a couple cleaning the bottom of their boat were kind enough to catch a line as we backed in.

Once tied up at the dock it was time for some IPA and steaks.

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Pub Crawl

Then drop the scooters on the dock and ride into Duval St. in Key West for some bar hoping.

Scooters

Exploring Key West on scooters is a blast. Have I mentioned that I believe the pair of scooters was a perfect addition to MV Simple Life? I bought them on Amazon if anyone is interested.

Now driving around on a scooter with a big dorky helmet can look a little silly but be sure to make sure your friend has not stuck childish pins in your helmet to make it look even worse. I did not notice this pin until I had already driven all around Duval St.

Beer Run Turned Police Crash

Even funnier was what happened on our way scootering back to the boat from a beer run. So Preppy and I are scootering past a pair of policemen who are sitting on the hood of their car which is blocking the road that leads to our boat. I’m not sure of the legality of scootering down the road so you try to avoid any law enforcement of such behavior. So I’m in the lead and I say “hello officers” as I speed by the front of them and prepare to stop and take a hard left turn onto the sidewalk. It’s in that moment that I hear Preppy look over at them and say “Hi guys” as I feel Preppy slam into the back of me now that I stopped to turn. It sends me flying forward on the scooter off the sidewalk and into the grass but somehow I managed to stay up even with a 20 lb. backpack full of beer. I knew the right thing to do in that moment was… DON’T STOP. Just keep on scooting like nothing happened. I was dying laughing but I’ll bet not as hard as the two officers!

Preppy Fly Home

When the day came for Preppy to fly out we called an Uber and walked past the tarpon swimming in the marina

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It was lots of fun having Preppy aboard but he must get back to New England especially with this Covid-19 Pandemic worsening.