January 21, Day 210 – Sanibel Island to Fort Myers

We woke early this morning and had a delicious breakfast of Karen’s empanadas. The marina actually delivered a newspaper and blueberry muffins this morning, but the empanadas were already on the griddle, so we saved the muffins for tomorrow. We left the marina at 9:30 heading for Fort Myers. The forecast was for some wind, but we found out “some wind” means around 20-25 knots. There were whitecaps on the water and it definitely didn’t let up as we entered the Caloosahatchee River. By the time we got to the Legacy Harbor Marina it was quite nasty. The temps were in the 80’s, but the winds made docking a bit tricky. However, once again, the Captain (and his crew) handled the docking without any real problems.

There are about 10 other loopers here. This seems to be the place to “stay for awhile” so we paid for the week. We have friends from our neighborhood that live in the Estero area that we plan on seeing while we are here and on the way, some friends in Fort Lauderdale, Gene and Diane (Diane is Karen’s sister – Karen of the famous empanadas) called to say they were coming to Fort Myers for the weekend to visit. Both visitors have offered to cart us around for sightseeing and/or provisioning. It doesn’t get any better than that for someone on a boat without land transportation.

After checking in we went to Joe’s Crab Shack with Michael and Jana for lunch. Great food plus they were having happy hour. Back at the boat we both took naps. You can do that when you’re retired.

The staff informed us that tonight was pot luck night at the marina tiki bar so we whipped up some jambalaya to take. We cleaned up and headed to the tiki bar around 6:30. These get-to-gathers are great. You see loopers/cruisers you’ve met along the way and meet new loopers/cruisers that somehow, you haven’t seen before in the thousands of miles you’ve traveled. Everyone has stories and advice to share and many times you find a common thread. For example tonight we met a couple from Nova Scotia that used to own a Monk. They have been at the marina for several years now, but recalled a few years back being parked next to another Monk named Integrity. Well, for those of you that really follow our blog, you know that Monk’s Vineyard WAS Integrity. This comes under the heading of “small world”.

After the pot luck we headed back to the boat and crashed. Even though we hadn’t traveled far today we were beat so it was off to bed.

We had interesting clouds this morning so snapped a shot of the weathervanes against the sky

Heading out of the marina -- another narrow, shallow channel

Passed a small island with a bohia and a dock.

Looking across the river at Cape Coral

Monk's Vineyard at the Legacy Harbour Marina

Looking out at the Caloosahatchee River as the sun set