Cruising South with PGSC

With the PGSC Gang at the Naples Railroad Museum

Pig-It, Hog-It...and Rain                     
                                                                        
Cards dealt and played. Points counted and recorded. Players rotated around the tables shaded by the Farmer's Market tent.   While we happily played Pig-It, Hog-It, a great card game, the southeastern sky darkened and turned black.  We were anchored in Marco's Smokehouse Bay with a half a dozen other sailboats  from the world famous Punta Gorda Sailing Club (PGSC).  

The bay is deep, blue and the holding excellent. Gorgeous homes line the shore and fish jump in the water.  Winn-Dixie provides a nice dinghy dock - a short distance from the anchorage.  About two blocks from Winn Dixie, the Farmer's Market tent stands in a large green field. That's where we played boccie ball , ladder ball and of course the card game "Pig-IT Hog It."  

The Radar Now App on my phone showed lots of rain headed our way as we played one more hand.  Joanne & I left our hatches partially open to provide Bleu Kitty a little air so we hurried back to our dinghy ... but NOT in time!  Not too bad, we had some mopping up to do - but the inside wasn't soaked. Rain came down in buckets for an hour or more.  Happy we were that we didn't decide to wait out the rain on shore.

After 10 days of fun with our fellow sailers in PGSC,  we said 'goodbye' and headed North. We actually sailed from Capri Pass to Gordon Pass.  After a night at the Naples Yacht Club we motorsailed to St Charles Yacht Club in Fort Myers as the wind died out.   There we met friends from IYC and from the Panama City YC and enjoyed a nice dinner with them.

As we headed North on the ICW, the southern wind popped up to over 25 knots providing quite a boisterous sail.  I tried to reef the main while sailing downwind and messed up. Before I could recover, Longhawk from our old marina in Texas came motoring by heading South for Marco and the Dry Torguas!  What a surprise to see them.  They yelled "Richard,  Richard" trying get my attention as I tried to straighten out the sail. Fortunately our opportunity to greet them was not missed because Joanne hailed them on the VHF.    We sailed up Charoltte Harbor tacking on broad reaches from Marker Five to Ponce and home once again cheating death on the inland seas! 


Pelican Bay  &  St. James City

We sailed down to Pelican Bay Sunday afternoon to meet the Punta Gorda Sailing Club Monday evening. That gave us a day to meander along the beach watching rays, shore birds and waves lapping on the sand.  We found a few nice shells including another arrow head sand dollar.   


We had never anchored off St James City at the south end of Pine Island so we were happy PGSC decided to make it our day's destination.  After dropping the hook, we dinghied to the Waterfront Restaurant for happy hour beer and good "peel and eat" shrimp.


Manatzas Pass East Mooring Field & Pink Shell

On a mooring ball for two nights in the Manatzas Pass East Mooring Field, we  dinghied to dinner at Salty Sams a short ride away. The next day we tried Doc Ford Rum Bar for lunch and the very popular Bonita Bills for happy hour - no shirt, no shoes, no problem.  Then we moved to a slip at the Pink Shell Marina for a night.  We made good use of the Pink Shell Resort's showers located in their lavish spa and the swimming pool for a day.   What a nice place!


On the Ball at Naples

We were on the ball at Naples (City Marina) for two nights. The second evening we had an early bird dinner with Nick and Maryellen at Bleu Provence, a nice little French Restaurant.  We played Pig-It, Hog-It on the city dock, visited the train museum, and a few art galleries near the city dock.


Inside To SmokeHouse Bay

We left Naples late in the morning to allow the tide to rise. With a 2'  high tide  we were able to take the inside route from Naples to Marco. We saw a lowest depth of approximately 5' 8",  but some boats drawing a little over 5'  bumped a few times.   This is a pretty route but even with our 4-1/2 ft keel, it is only passable with a high tide.  There is an interesting anchorage along the way but I didn't want to take the time to look around and end up entering Marco on a falling tide. Maybe next time!  We anchored securely in Smokehouse Bay in 17' of water.  Condo developments surround the bay that are upscale and attractive.  A canal leads to a nice dinghy dock supplied by Winn Dixe for easy provisioning.  From the dock one can walk to numerous restaurants and shops including a small West Marine store.  All in all, a great place to anchor and spend a few days in paradise!

Pictures

Note - Somehow this post has been hacked - links have been added to words like "shoe" or "next" but the link associated with the word doesn't show up when editing the page nor does the word appear to have an assoicated link. Viewing in HTML mode doesn't help either.   I have tried to delete them but they keep showing back up!  First time this has happened.