Regatta and regalia in Naples

Before we weighed anchor this morning, I found Willis in the head doing his morning sit down.  He sure is a curious one.  I swear I will potty train him one day.  At least he is facing the right way for a boy ;)
 

By 11:30am, we were heading out to sea again (the green Gulf of Mexico).



It was Sunday, and there was a Regatta going on between Marco Island and Naples. It reminded me of the days when we raced on Sunday afternoons at the Muncie Sailing Club.  We wanted to jump in and race with them:)  We both commented that those days really prepared us for where we are now.  Racing teaches you a lot about reading the wind and sail trim. 

It was only a four hour passage, and Willis took it like a champ- sleeping in my chair most of the way.

As we entered Gordon Pass into Naples we passed one mansion...

after another....

and another...look how LONG this one is.

There are so many wealthy people in the U.S....unbelievable.

Is it old money or new money?

It was unreal...and this is only in one small town, in one state, in the U.S.  We've encountered this so many times in our travels.  It's unbelievable, really.  But we've also seen that for each big, fine home we see, there are thousands that are living in government housing or even worse.  The disparity is sad to me.

This one was under construction...I wonder how many millions?

We checked in to Naples City Dock to pick up the last of two mooring balls available.  The marina was full, and that was evident by the crazy boat traffic all up and down Gordon Pass.  It was required that we take a pump out before we moored, which was fine with us.  We also took on 10 gallons of diesel and filled our aft water tank.  Once we got the ball, Cap'n set up the wind scoop over the Vberth hatch.  It's in the high 80's with little wind, and about 85% humidity.  It's going to be a hot few days here!

We picked up a walking map of Naples from the dockmaster.  Willis was not interested in a tour of the town.  He had already moved his sleepy, sorry self into the galley for some more catnapping, with the map.

Palm Cottage, the oldest home in Naples.

I hobbled my way to Naples Pier.  I could not have managed the Bahamas with the broken toes :(

The Pier has an interesting history.

It was a beautiful beach...I will say that for the Gulf coast...the beaches are gorgeous.

I was admiring the sand and I saw something move. Nobody was around, and this little girl was happily buried in the sand up to her neck.  It looked creepy.

Dolphin sightings are plentiful in the Gulf.  Here's a momma and baby.

The pier was full of people fishing...and they were pulling in one fish after another.  They were mostly carvelle jacks and ladyfish which I guess are both trash fish.  They were laying dead all over the pier.  Some of them were using pieces of those to try and hook something bigger.  Otherwise, it seemed like such a waste to me.

This one really surfaced out of the water :)  As we left the pier, we met Myron and Norma from Minnesota who took pity on my hobbling.  They offered us a ride back to the City Dock, of which I was so grateful.  Donnie was invited to drink coffee with the old guys who meet every morning on the dock to solve the world's problems!

We missed seeing the sunset on the water as we dinked back to the boat.  If you look closely, though, you can see the rays shooting up through the clouds, which was really beautiful. 

The old gal still looks pretty good, don't you think?

As soon as we got settled back into the boat, and Willis was climbing all about on top, we could hear dolphins "puffing" all around the boat.  We could barely make them out in the moonlight.  We also heard the tarpon again, wallowing in the water.  They were likely feeding. I gave Willis a stern talking to about not falling off the boat again, as I didn't want him to become a tarpon snack.  Before I turned in, I left the ladder down, just in case.  The boy can climb a ladder like a pro.

We walked down to Tin City yesterday morning, a popular place for shopping and eating along the water.  We had lunch out, then planned to go back to the boat to relax.  We had plans to meet up with Brett (from Banana Bay) for dinner.  Cap'n decided to dive under the boat to free up the knot meter wheel.  It had some growth in it.  As we sailed up from the Keys, it was not working, but we also can see our speed on the chartplotter.



We took another dink ride to see what there was to see...

As we passed under a bridge, we realized we could have saved ourselves the walking to Tin City.  We went right by it on the dink!

As we were looking for the Tavern on the Bay (where we were meeting Brett) we wondered where he was talking us!  This was a beautiful area...not what I was expecting for a 'tavern'.

As we walked the streets, we were clearly underdressed.  That's normal.

It looked more like a scene out of "Real Housewives of Naples".  We found out later that this area had been scouted for a television show.  I'm not surprised.  The Tavern on the Bay was definitely more of our speed, and we had a fabulous dinner.  The conversation was good, too, with Brett and Vicki, as we learned more about the area.  We also talked about sailing to Mexico and beyond...it was great fun.  Brett drew us a map on a napkin for where we plan to sail to next- Ft. Myers.  Pirates have found treasure on less, right?!  It looks like a full day's sail to get there.

So, while Donnie had coffee this morning with Myron and the boys, I scabbed on to the WiFi next door to get the blog up.  As soon as I hit 'publish', we area headed north to Ft. Myers beach today.  There seems to be a breeze out of the west, so hopefully today will be more sailing and less motoring.  Until then, fair winds....