Finally Found Florida

After being in Florida off and on for the past few months, the Real Florida has finally appeared with sunny skies and high temperatures in the 80s.

It’s not that we need this weather all the time but it’s nice to see it when it does show up and by all accounts, the weather should hold for the next while.

From Sarasota, we traveled along the ICW to Venice.

We had arranged to have dinner with some friends.

This particular friend happened to be a sister of an old high school classmate.

She had reached out to me through Social Media when she saw Selkie was close by and asked if we could get together as we passed through Venice.

As it turned out, her husband worked at the local marina, the Crows Nest. He helped us get Selkie into the marina.

Libbie and I did our standard chores, putting things in their proper places (because things mysteriously move while underway).

We then went to their house for dinner, and we had a great time.

We talked about mutual friends from my high school that I had not seen in decades, and she got me caught up on a lot of them. It was amazing to talk to her; I hadn’t seen her in 48 years since the day I graduated from high school, and yet we talked like old friends.

We surprised her brother, one of the guys I was closest to in high school, but through life circumstances, had not seen in a long time. She asked me to FaceTime him with her tablet.

When he saw my face (when he was expecting his sister), he paused and didn’t recognize me right away (it had been decades).

I told him who I was and then his jaw dropped.

We had a great conversation catching up for about 10 minutes.

He and his wife live in South Carolina so we hope to see them on the way through next year.

We said goodbye to everyone, and I had a glow that happens when I see people I like but haven’t seen in a while…in this case a very long time. It had been a great evening.

The next morning we left Venice and went to a two night Anchorage at a place called Cape Haze.

Cape Haze must be named for the local fog that occasionally appears in that part of the ICW. It surprised us coming down the ICW. The fog was very thick, making me turn Selkie’s radar on.

With the radar on, I was able to see the channel markers and other navigation aids that I couldn’t see visually.

We slowly crept our way down the channel until the fog cleared again.

It was a bit dicey, as we don’t like to move in the fog, particularly in narrow channels

The fog lifted after an hour or so.

We resumed speed and went to our planned anchorage.

We spent two nights resulting an uneventful stay during some bad weather, which is what you prefer on a boat, as there lots of opportunities for unscheduled events.

It happened to be a weekend of NFL playoffs.

Libbie and I were content to just sit back and watch some football by ourselves and enjoy Selkie as more of a home.

My teams won, and were going to play each other in the NFC championship. Libbie and the girls were rooting for one and I root for the other.

We picked up anchor at Cape Haze and proceeded to Punta Gorda where we were to meet up at the American Great Loop Cruisers, Association’s winter gathering.

As it turned out, I raised my hand to speak about anchoring and so I put together a 70 page PowerPoint slide deck on that topic.

Some of you who’ve been following my blog for a while will remember my Anchorology blogs that I did about a year and a half ago.

The presentation was an introduction to anchoring for people who have never boated before, kind of an Anchoring 101.

They say you learn from your mistakes, and I had a lot to share.

They also say that it’s ok to learn from mistakes, but you don’t have to be the one making them.

My objective was that the audience of the uninitiated understood that they better follow the principles of anchoring, or they were going to perhaps repeat my mistakes.

My talk was scheduled for 845 on Tuesday.

I put a lot of slides in the presentation but it was poorly organized.

Libbie got speaker credit because she helped me organize the slides and corrected some of the wording.

We do make a good team in a few other areas as well.

The presentation was well received by an audience of more than 200 attendees.

I was able to relax the rest the rest of the convention and learn some things from other folks there.

The presentation apparently went so well enough that I was asked to do it again at the next gathering, and would I also be interested in taking over the presentation on cruising Lake Michigan.

Once I get through my upcoming shoulder surgery, it might be that I wind up being a regular presenter at these looper meetings.

We had a great three days in Punta Gorda, met a lot of new friends and enjoyed ourselves.

At our dock, one of the boaters pulled out a trumpet. He was a jazz trumpeter, and a really good one. One night, he played a song from Phantom of the opera. He hit some really impressive high notes.

Each night we were treated to about a 10 minute concert after dinner. Everybody enjoyed it.

When it was time to leave, we had to wait for Selkie to break free of the mud with a rising tide. The mud is soft, so it’s not a problem as long as I make sure my intake strainers for the main engine don’t suck up any debris.

We had a four hour run over to Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island. Boca Grande is a pretty special place in our family.

I’ll write about that next time.

For now, the weather has finally gotten nicer, it’s getting warmer, and it finally feels like the Florida we remember.