Cruising Down the ICW

We left the Regatta Pointe Marina on Thursday, Feb 11^th at noon. We said goodbye to our C Dock friends whose warmth and helpfulness made the beginning of our journey so enjoyable. Well, as enjoyable as 2 months of boat work can be. It was a perfect day–light winds, 70°F, and sunny.

All of our engine frustrations were behind us and we were excited to finally be traveling somewhere.

The ICW (Inner Costal Waterway) was pretty easy to navigate. We just need to remember “Greens to the Sea”. We kept the green markers on our starboard side and the red ones on our port side. We cruised the ICW all the way to Fort Myers for a total of 92 miles. We passed under 12 draw bridges, which we had to hail on the VHF radio. It was all pretty exciting and pretty easy. The only drawback being that whoever was at the helm had to pay attention to “the road”. There was so much action, that we couldn’t put it in autopilot and relax.

Our first night we stayed on a mooring ball at Marina Jack’s in Sarasota. Here we took our first dinghy ride with the dogs. I really wish we would have practiced dinghy riding with the pups at the marina. If we had, we probably would have learned that our dinghy is a bit small for all of us. Even after removing the dinghy seat, it’s still a bit cozy. We also would have learned that there is an issue in our fuel supply line to the motor. What should have been a quick dinghy ride to shore, turned out to be a long start/stop process. At one point Rob even tried rowing, but with the dinghy being packed full with puppies, he didn’t have enough room. We limped along with me holding the pups down and Rob fiddling with the priming bulb. For some reason Baxter wants to jump out of the dinghy and attack buoys. I’m not sure what he thinks they are, but I know he does not like what he sees.

Once on shore we walked the dogs in a park in downtown Sarasota. It was squirrel central in the park, which made Jaela very excited. There is nothing she loves more in this world than squirrels, not even us. The dinghy ride back to the boat was better.  We cooked dinner and watched the sunset behind the bridge.  Minus the dinghy ride hiccup, it was a pretty perfect day.

Day 2 on the ICW was more or less the same.  More bridges, plenty of sunshine, and lots of action in the waterway. We decided to anchor near Don Pedro Park around 2pm. We spent the afternoon walking the trails in the park and the pups got to stretch their legs on the beach. We watched another spectacular sunset while we ate dinner in the cockpit. In the morning, we saw dolphins playing near the boat. It was the perfect day. It’s days like this that we envisioned when we first decided to take this adventure.

Our ride down the ICW gave us confidence in ourselves and in our boat, but our first day in the Gulf washed it all away. Holy crap, the Gulf can be a rocky road. We exited the ICW in Fort Myers and headed into the Gulf for the first time. We had plenty of wind, so we put the sails up and started down the coast. We had 3 to 5 foot seas, but the waves were frequent and were hitting our stern on the starboard side, which made for some serious rocking action.

As it was getting dark, we put the pups down below and suited up in our life jackets which have our ACR PLBs attached. We were still feeling pretty good and in control at this point.  But as the sun was setting, the wind and waves picked up. We brought the dogs up to see if they would do their business in the cockpit. There was no way we were going to risk taking them to their turf pad on the bow of the boat. At this point Baxter started throwing up and we knew we needed to find an anchorage.

We started heading towards Gordon Pass in Naples. What we didn’t know was that it was approaching high tide, which meant copious amounts of water rushing through the narrow inlet to feed all of the inland canals and bays. Also, the channel is narrow with shoaling on the north side. It was dark and we were entering the channel in very dangerous conditions.

I manned the spotlight and Rob was at the helm trying to keep Kairos in the center of the channel as she surfed on the incoming waves. For those that know me, you know that I like to challenge Rob and think that I can do most things just as well as he can. Steering the boat in chaotic conditions is NOT one of those things. I was scared and frantic, but Rob was cool as always and navigated us safely into the channel despite the poor visibility and rocky conditions. I was very impressed.

Once we were inside the canal and had land to protect us from the wind, the waves dissipated and we could finally breathe. We found an anchorage spot among some very large $5 million homes. Just 10 minutes ago we were terrified of crashing into rocks and now we were anchored next to the rich and famous.

All four of us were so exhausted, we quickly ate dinner and fell asleep. We were humbled by the Gulf and Gordon Pass and have a new found respect for navigating at night. It was the scariest moment of our journey thus far, but we made it through it and were finally resting safely.