Caloosahatchee River

Another couple of hours on the boat this morning and we are now up to 9 hours on the engine. I don’t believe I’ve ever been ahead of Alison in boating hours in a season! I’m feeling a little smug after making several perfect dockings in a row. To be completely honest I have a very strong breeze everyday pushing me onto the dock - I can’t help but land. Getting off the dock is another story - we have to springline the boat from the midcleat to get the rear end to come away from the dock, then we back out. It’s working like a charm and will probably be a useful skill in a few days. The first time we tried it it took both of us with boat hooks to fend off a neighboring boat. We are now currently planning on starting our voyage next Tuesday or Wednesday. We get kicked out of our house on Saturday and will be moving onto the boat the same day. No sense sitting at our dock for too long. We still need to get the boat serviced which I’m hoping can happen next Monday, then we’re off. This morning we headed East on the Caloosahatchee River to see what is in that direction. I’ve posted a picture of a bridge we went under. The channel narrows to about 40 ft. wide with a pretty constant depth of about 9 ft. There are a lot of “Manatee Zones” and other areas where you have to go slow. Other than those areas the speed limit is set at 25 mph. The Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW from now on) is pretty full of boats heading to the east coast and then north. We will be in plenty of company. Apparently April 1st is the setout date for a lot of boaters to head north. The boat police are in full force out here - when they say “No Wake” they mean it. In a construction area under one bridge the maximum fine for a wake is posted as “$27,500” - I wonder if my badge would work, probably not! I don’t know what the fine is in other areas but I’ve been told by the marina dock master that the “police are not shy about giving tickets - that’s how they pay for their equipment.“ We saw a large boat and a jet skier pulled over by the police today on our short trip but we saw several more violations. The radio is full of private boaters and marinas reporting violators to the police. We have noticed a trend among the boat owners down here - the large boat owners never wave or look our way as they pass, the small boat owners couldn’t be more friendly. There has been no rain down here and Lake Okechobee is so low that they are now restricting the eastbound locks to only opening 4 times a day - we’re going to have to take that into consideration when we time the trip. We got 30 gallons of gas today and, after counting the BOATUS discount - it only cost us $90.00. Tomorrow we are planning a boat trip to Sanibel where we are going to try and dock up for a couple of hours. Dockage is very scarce around here so that may not come to pass. We are dreading moving out of the house and away from the beautiful beach but we are also excited and anxious to get moving north. Still have not seen a manatee - but one was seen off our dock yesterday - along with a tarpon! Ken
In response to some of the comments - yes the ICW is this crowded during this time of the year, the beach is public in front of the house, and you can (maybe) teach an old dog new tricks.