MIDORI ADVENTURES

We depart our Rabbit Key anchorage at 7:00 a.m. during a beautiful sunrise.

Two routes are available to travel from the Ten Thousand Islands area to Marco Island and beyond: the Inland Passage and the OutsidePassage. Typically, we have taken the Outside Passage which requires us to go quite away offshore from the Ten Thousand Islands in order to make our way around the vast Cape Romano Shoals where our exposure is from the entire northern sector of the Gulf of Mexico.

We have always wanted to try the Inland Passage which will provide protection and save some time. The route is recommended for boats with a draft of 4.5 feet or less and a mast height above the water of less than 55 feet. (MIDORI has a draft of 3'6" and a mast height of 49')

We travel along the boundary of the Everglades National Park, going past the Ten Thousand Islands for approximately 2 1/2 hrs. At 9:35, just south of Marco Island, we reach Coon Key Light, marking the entrance to Coon Key Pass. This is noted to be the shallowest part of the route. We are traveling on a mid-tide. The route takes us east to the fishing village of Goodland. (I would like to stop here next time!) (The shallowest depth we saw was 5'4".)

The next section of the waterway and the Big Marco River required considerable attention. Markers are moved to reflect shifting shoals and may not be exactly where the chart shows them. Some sections on the chart are marked as 3 feet at mean low water! (The lowest spot we saw was 5'7".)

Moving downstream, the channel is well-marked with red navigational aids to starboard and green to port, until we reach the 55 foot fixed vertical clearance bridge at Bear Point, and the rules shift to red-right-returning. ( In this section we saw a spot as low as 5'2".)

We are now "home-free" as we carry on down the river and pass by the familiar anchorage of Factory Bay and The Snook Inn and carry on to Capri Pass into the Gulf of Mexico.
It is approximately 11:30 a.m. The wind is 15 knots, ESE on our stern port quarter. We put the jib sail out and are soon doing 8.0 knots. Captain Brian switches to manual steering as the auto helm does not behave well in this type of sea. A couple of hours later, the wind has shifted to SSW at 10 knots, but is now on our stern starboard quarter. We are now riding 4 to 5 foot swells and steering manually for the next 3 hours as well as dodging crab pots which are difficult to see in the waves. The Fort Myers Beach skyline gets closer and closer. When we finally turn into Estero Bay, the swells calm down somewhat, but the crab pot watch continues. Needless to say, steering under these conditions is exhausting.

Finally, we reach the channel of Matanzas Pass (behind Estero Island) and, after stopping for gas at Moss Marine, then a mix up in the mooring ball assignment, we are settled on ball # 36 by 5:00 p.m.

We departed at 6:49 a.m., Arrived at 5:08 p.m. and covered a distance of 59.7 nautical miles in 9 hours and 58 minutes. Our average speed was 6 knots with a maximum speed of 8.1.

Now, we will put the dinghy down, put the motor on the dinghy, go in for a shower and a meal out!

Stay tuned,

First Mate Lynn