Day 73 - Alice's Restaurant — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 69, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $120, daily high temperature 75*F

The Fisherman’s Wharf Marina was very nice. We took the only available slip. This Marina wins the wasted paper award for having a seven page transient slip agreement. The marina recently changed hands. Let me guess, a lawyer bought it.

Rich Reick came over to visit. He brought along his mother-in-law Jean who has been living in a nearby community for 26 years. It is a five minute drive from the marina. Very convenient. We had dinner at the marina restaurant. The food was excellent. The restaurant has a renown chef in the kitchen not a short order cook. They are in contention with one other Florida restaurant to represent Florida in a Food Network challenge.

The boat next to us Vivens Aqua a Novatec 55′ is from Nashville, Tn. Rick and Tracy Wells are cruising with the youngest three of their nine children. The have a boy age 11 and two girls ages 14 and 16 that are being home schooled. They will spend the holidays in the Keys and then head to the Bahamas. They spend a month at each marina to get the low monthly rate. The two older children get jobs at each location. Both of them are working at the marina restaurant. I am sure we will see them again.

We are back on the gulf today heading to Tarpon Point Marina in Cape Coral near Ft Meyers. We will be on the gulf for 39 miles then enter the ICW at Boca Grande pass. The advantage of traveling in the gulf is we will enter the ICW south of the Boca Grande swing bridge. The bridge which opens once per hour and has caused long delays for other Loopers when it has not opened on time. We will travel on the ICW for 25 miles to Cape Coral. Chris and Kirstyn Weber will meet us there. They are spending the winter in Ft. Meyers. We will also meet with Susan and Kenny Belinder. Susan is Sandy Patterson’s twin sister. Sandy worked with me at Rust-Oleum for ten years. Kenny was my guitar accompanist during open microphone nights at the Island Tap. Tomorrow we will have docktails with Betti and Seaby Bess. We have known them for many years in the Waukegan / Winthrop Harbor sailing community. They recently moved to Ft. Meyers.

A floating bar near our marina in Cape Coral

The highlight of this stop over is Dale and Andy will get off the boat for the first time in 74 days. A neighbor from Mundelein moved to Ft. Meyers and invited them to stay at their home overnight. Andy will get to decorate a Christmas tree.

We will stay in Cape Coral for two or three days and then cruise to Macro Island. John and Priscilla will fly to Boston from Ft. Meyers on Tuesday, December 8. John will return on December 13. If the weather window allows we will move the boat to Key West on December 15. Priscilla will fly from Boston to Key West on December 20. Lots of festivities are planned for Key West.

Our Florida mentor Bill Valters commented;
“What you will find on the east coast ICW is that the red cans are always on the “land” side of the waterway. In other words as you travel south on the west coast they will be on our left and as you travel north on the Atlantic side they will also be on our left.”

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For you arm chair naviguessers, here is screen shot of our course today. We are the red triangle entering Boca Grande Pass. We will then turn south and follow the ICW course marked in blue to Cape Coral.

Does anyone remember the song Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie? This is the newspaper article about the incident that started it all.

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote of the day.

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.”

Samuel Johnson

(Sorry Dave McKenna – this one was too good to pass up.)