Sunday, April 5. OK, so the commercial fishermen start running the channel @ 4:30. And we thought it was bad in Naples @ 7:00. This is not the place to stay. Tomorrow and Tuesday they are predicting strong (15- 20) winds from SW>NW. Normally this would be great winds to make a run either down to Shark River or direct to Key West, but Westerly winds on the Gulf are to be respected and avoided if possible, so since we have no fixed schedule (gotta love that!), we will just find a more comfortable anchorage to ride out this bit of weather. Jack Daniels looks good. We can anchor in a cut between the main island and a smaller one and will be very protected from SW>NW (but open to SE which is what today's light winds are.) The sail over is only two miles and we just use gennie after clearing the 4' patch off Indian. The depths are a bit less than charted through the cut so we anchor a bit further East as we are predicted to have a couple of -1' tides - not sure why, it is a half moon. We anchor easily and it sets immediately (one good thing about this SW Florida mud!). Deb continues to sew up cones, I finish splicing the eyes (including one with a thimble - fit great) and begin weaving the cones into the line. The instructions say it takes about 4 minutes a cone (and we have 150). I got 8 done today before we decided it was low tide and we should go visit the beaches on the little island. Didn't find anything real exciting, but the beach was nicer than Indian and the water felt great as it was getting pretty hot. Back on the boat, we celebrated our anchorage with a Jack Daniel's Manhattan, and Jack Daniel's beef ribs on the grill. No dolphin antics tonight, but we did see a manatee. Very comfortable night at anchor.