Day Two - Cato Costa to Naples

From the anchorage at Cayo Costa you go north a bit and out Boca Grande pass and out a mile before turning south along the coast. The wind was from the south and started at 10 knots and picked up to 15. No sailing just working the motor all day and the waves kept growing. By noon I was down to making 3.3 knots while plowing into 3 and 4 foot waves. Every 20th wave or so came up to the bow and almost stopped us.

Breeze handled it well and since we were straight into the waves, the autopilot did the first mates work while I looked for the lines of fish trap bouys that would have wrapped around the propeller. I either saw them all or missed them by dumb luck.

After passing Sanibel, we turned about 35 degrees off the wind to steer to Naples. I rolled out the jib and we jumped to 5 knots. All afternoon the wind slowly changed to southwest and lightened. By 4:30 I raised the mainsail and was able to average almost 6 knots while reducing throttle. At 6:00 we reached Gordon pass and motored 4 miles up the Naples River to grab a mooring at the Naples City Dock. 55 miles.

We are moored about 300 feet from where we bought Serenity about ten years ago. The best news is that we will be picking up a real crew member in Key West. Art Michaelsen, my best buddy growing up in East Norwich, NY is joining us for a week. He was a Navy sailor and then a blow boat sailor in the Chesapeake and various Caribbean ports.

Tomorrow I plan on making Indian Key off Everglades City. The chance of phone service there is poor and the next stop is Little Shark River in the Everglades where there is no phone service. So it is likely that my next update will be Saturday from Lower Matecumbe Key or Marathon, depending on wind direction.