Naples

to see pictures  http://picasaweb.google.com/103931849054358791487/Naples?feat=directlink

We have a sunrise departure on Thursday from our anchorage to continue down the ICW to the Sanibel Causeway Bridge where we will cross under and out into the Gulf to continue down to Naples. It is a beautiful day as we travel south with the beautiful Islands of Captiva & Sanibel a mile to the west & Pine Island 2-3 miles off to the East. We have to make sure we do not leave the ICW channel as the water off o either side is only 3 feet deep. By 9:30 we are passing St. James City, another good anchorage we heard but we will not be stopping here. After that we turn into what is called the miserable mile, it is actually very scenic BUT it is even more narrow here and the water off to the sides can be as shallow as 1 foot. The other problem is the small power boats & fishing boats are zooming up & down making it a very busy section. They say sail boats need to beware on the weekends and really watch out if it is a holiday weekend. By 10:30 we pass under the bridge 70’ clearance and are back out into the green waters of the Gulf. Winds are too light for sailing so we have the main up & motor running. Winds pick up a little so we put the jib out & throttle back a little so it is not as noisy. By 3:30 we are turning up the channel to go up the Gordon River to Naples to the City Dock where we top off with 25 gallons of diesel and get a slip for a night or two so we can provision for our trip down to the Keys. After settling in & getting cleaned up we walk into “town” to 5th avenue the shopping & restaurant street. All kinds of activity going on, shops are all open people walking around, come to find out they were having a wine tasting event that night. You could get a ticket to go around to all the different restaurants and sample some wine & food. We got there too late to take advantage of that BUT all the stores were still open so we could walk the street and look around. They had a White & Black store that now has BLUE – when did that happen, saw a beautiful silver bracelet that I was so tempted to buy, & passed by Cache it was tough not to go in & look! TOO soon to think about buying anything. Found a great restaurant to eat at special of two full meals & salad plus a bottle of wine for just $35. Nice walk back to the boat to make up for the bread served with dinner.

Friday we take a 3 mile walk to West Marina and Publix for supplies, have lunch out & catch a taxi ride back to the boat. Steve spends the afternoon working on a new boat project fixing the pump out for the head, seems the dip tube inside tank came off so it won’t pump out. Too much trouble to take the tank out so got some good advice from Raymond back home and Steve puts in a T to connect the pump out line to the bottom of the tank.

Saturday afternoon we leave for Key West, should take us about 16 hours so we will arrive sunrise Sunday morning.  Will post link to pictures when we get to Key West - Steve says I have to shut down to get ready to pull out.