Well, it's true: The Everglades really are beautiful. If you have lots of bug repellent! Our anchorage last night was very pretty and protected, but the no-see-ums came out in droves and found every crack and crevice in the boat, of which there are many. Fortunately, we do have bug repellent, but it feels weird to be putting it on while closed-in below decks, and its not 100% effective: Leslie reported a poor night for sleeping. So, partly due to bugs, and partly due to my desire to reconnect to my employer sooner rather than later, we pulled our anchor and headed off at first light.

Today was mostly spent several miles off the shoreline as the waters here are very shallow, Indeed, we didn't see anything more than 20 feet all day and most of it was in single digits. We also encountered another fog bank in the morning while we were under sail...same drill as yesterday except that the fog sound signal for a vessel under sail is different (long, short, short) from the one for a vessel under power (long) so we got to rediscover how to change the setting on our fog signal.

Once out of the fog, we gradually re-approached the shore and entered the area known as the Ten Thousands Islands...I think they undercounted! We threaded our way up a channel between islands and found a very nice, well-protected anchorage. The wind had also piped up so that the bugs weren't bad at all.

As we arrived in the early afternoon, Leslie took the kayak and went off exploring. She spotted an alligator (to which she gave a wide berth) and saw a large sea turtle that surfaced only five yards from her!

To my work-related relief, we do have Internet access here so I'm busily catching up with things. The joke is that, while we have re-established internet access, our web host, sailblogs, seems to lost theirs! I'll upload this when they come back...