We are comfortably anchored this evening at the tip of Pine Island, just off of St. James City. We have been here dozens of times and know the area well. Sanibel is off to the west. We can see the bridge from here. Tomorrow we head out under that bridge to the Gulf of Mexico.
We have had some terrific sailing weather in the past two days. The forecast for Monday’s sail down the harbor was winds 10-15 from the East. We had at least double those wind speeds. The main sail had not been up since Memorial Day. When we hoisted it, we evicted several nests of mud daubers. We are not sure what those gentle wasps did before humans built closets, drawers and furled sails. Where did they build their nests?
Caprice heeled over and did well sailing close to the wind. We made 6 knots flying down the harbor close hauled. That rarely happens. The turn westward towards Boca brought more comfortable conditions, but we were still making 5 knots downwind, just flying the mainsail.
We arrived at Pelican Bay in record time of less than 4 hours from home. As we approached Cato Costa, Jack didn’t want to do the deck dance to drop the sails in rough conditions, so we sailed right into Pelican Bay and dropped the main as we turned into the wind to anchor. Fortunately it wasn’t crowded yet and we managed to sequentially drop the sail and drop the anchor a polite distance from other boats.
We spent a quiet afternoon and evening on board catching our breath from a vigorous sail and tidying up the aftermath.
We celebrated with a nice grilled steak dinner with a fresh salad. Meals the last few days before departure consist of cleaning up all the leftovers.
This morning over coffee we lazily contemplated the short sail to St. James City and were not in a hurry to depart. Yesterday when we struggled to break free of the sludge at the end of our dock at very low tide, Jack felt the rudder hit our personal shoals. Later the steering seemed to be pulling to one side and he figured we may have picked up some canal debris. Yesterday’s rough conditions didn’t reveal any problems but just to be on the safe side, he he donned his dive gear and dove down to take a look. All was in fine shape except he discovered that a former resident ship rat chewed the nose off of his prescription dive mask.
@#$&*%&
Today’s sail was a comfortable uneventful trip trip down the intracoastal accompanied by dozens of power and sailing vessels out on a lovely Tuesday.
Even though the floor never stops moving I’m starting to get my sea legs and not mind the rocking of the boat as we attempt to drift off to seep. Tomorrow we head for open water and we the Florida Keys.