Saturday, October 01, 2016

Burnt Store Marina!

We arrived today, Saturday at about noon, at Burnt Store Marina. It seemed like an eternity trip but when we add up the actual time moving it was about 5 weeks. It just seemed very long because of all the hold ups for everything from weather to health. We both are exhausted but very happy to have finished our trip unscathed. Dad will pick us up tomorrow to go to his house. We spent today doing some cleaning but there is still lots more to do but we have plenty of time to do it in.

We were at anchor last night on the ICW side of Sanibel Island. It was a quiet night with a rain shower lasting less than 5 minutes. That's more than I can say for our night at little Shark River. The trip getting there was very stressful and stormy the whole way. Seas were rough and visibility was low because of the heavy rain, with lots of thunder and lightning. We both felt like we had been on the inside of a washing machine when we got to our anchorage in Little Shark River. So much for the storms looking like they were going North. When we got to the anchorage we found that it had shoaled in since our last time there. We had to anchor almost in the channel in order to get enough depth under our keel for low tide. Being that far out and the wind doing a switch it brought waves up behind us and slapped our stern all night. By morning we felt like we had not slept a wink. As soon as day broke we were out of there. We decided to have another long day and go all the way to Marco Island. The weather was supposed to get very nasty the day after. This was another very long day. The winds were on our nose so we couldn't get help from our sails to steady the boat in the rolling seas. We could see storm clouds building around us but most avoided us. Thank goodness. One storm cloud that passed by had a funny looking spray of water below it. At first glance it looked like a fishing boat with its nets and rig out, but then as we watched it a water spout developed below it. It was big and hung there sucking up water for what seemed like an eternity. We were really glad this cloud was going away from us. By the time we got to the channel at Marco Island another storm was building and we had opposing wind and tide as we entered the channel. This is not fun to  maneuver, it's hard to stay up right and steer. By the time we got to the marina our equilibrium was so bad from the two days of being rocked around it was hard to stand on land without feeling like you were still moving. We decided to stay an extra day, the weather was not going to be a good day for being on the water. What else was new! We always say we are going to rest when we stay extra days but they never happens. We cleaned the boat up some and did laundry and went to the grocery store for some supplies. We left Friday morning to go as far as Fort Myers Beach and then up to Sanibel to our
anchorage. We had some scattered showers but no thunder and lightning. The water was rolling us around and the wind was not a help for sailing. We were very happy to be under the bridge at Sanibel and into the ICW.