the long, hot, sail (motor)

AIS was 4:00am...in retrosprect, we should have just left at midnight.  It was a southerly breeze, at about 10 knots, that started slow and tapered off to nearly nothing.  It was a good sea trial for Bessie, as we motored the whole cotton-pickin' way to Marco Island.  She worked beautifully and never overheated, spit soot or anything.  We have a Bessie we can rely on once again.  It was beautiful seeing the sun rise for a change, sometime after 7:00am.  :)

 

This is what we looked at for nearly 16 hours.  We only saw three boats at a distance the entire day.  We did spot a loggerhead turtle, and at least twenty dolphins.  I could only coax two of them to come play for a minute in our bow wake.  They were Amish dolphins.

 

Willis was giving me lip about how hot it was...did I tell you it was HOT?! 

 

Though Willis may have been feeling sickly, he never got seasick this trip.  He did, however, manage to pee down Cap'n's leg.  After I hosed him down (Cap'n, too) in the cockpit to clean him up and cool him down... 

He slept comfortably the rest of the trip...in MY chair.  Dern cat.

We saw "Land ho!" about 15 miles out...that was the longest. fifteen. miles. ever.  We were really getting pushed for time, too, as the sun was beginning to set as we approached Capris Pass.  While we cruised up the coast of Marco Island, I went down below to make pizza- it was Friday Night Pizza Night, afterall!  Turkey pepperoni, roma tomatoes, onion, green peppers, banana peppers and cheese- it hit the spot :)

Willis was doing his best to help us watch signs as we navigated into the pass.  I swear, he is a dog in cat's clothing!  It was very confusing, and getting dark quickly.  We were planning to pick our way up Collier Bay to Smokehouse Bay where there's reportedly 10' of water and good holding.  There are lots of sand shoals here and we hit 3.3 on the depth sounder!  No way, getting too dark for unknown territory.  We turned and headed for the nearest marina.

We tried hailing several marinas on the VHF, but they were all naturally gone for the night.  We saw this tall ship outside of a "dockominium", with several sailboats inside and lots of empty slips.  Apparently many of the condo owners do not have boats.  We went in an grabbed the first one available, and ended up next to Dan (another Dan) on a 40' C & C.  He gave us the lay of the land, told to go ahead an hook up to shorepower, and the dockmaster would be down to see us in the morning.  After a couple of cockpit showers, and the A/C cranking out the cold air, we were down for the count by 10pm.  G'nite y'all!  Thanks for all the well wishes for a safe passage- it worked :)