We woke up at the Marco River Marina a third time in expectations that there would be a mechanic at the boat when promised, at 09:00. He showed up after 10:00, after going through the list of problems his only comment was "that is weird". Another alternator was installed and we got a call while we were out scoping out an anchorage close by saying [...]

We had a beautiful day of exploring, swimming, and fishing. The wind stopped dead at sunset and we got to experience some more of the wonders of the Everglades. The bugs! We had to lock ourselves inside of the boat and decided that we better leave in the morning. We had also been noticing that the batteries hadn't been charging when we ran the engine [...]

Happy Halloween! We have found our small paradise and aren't leaving until the bugs come back. We explored various beaches around Panther Key, Hog Key, and Round Key. The wind really kicked up the afternoon so we went back to the boat to make sure we weren't dragging anchor.

We left Indian Key around 10:30am and sailed for a couple of hours to Panther Key. This area of the Everglades is called the "10,000 Islands" and there are literally 10,000 islands. Some as small as one single tree. A 'key' is a small, low-elevation, sandy island. In this area most of them are covered in mangroves and inaccessible, but towards the Gulf, sand is [...]

We left Marco River Marina at 10:00am and headed south in search of white sand beaches. We had read that a place called Indian Key in the Everglades had just that. We arrived there around sunset and found the suggested anchorage to be less than stellar with only a very small beach. We went farther up into the channel towards Everglades City and found a [...]

We had been promised the arrival of Mike from Yachting Vacations at 9:00-9:30am. He arrived at 10:30am. He started on fixing the battery issue right away but it took him until nearly 6:00pm. We walked to the market to buy a few fresh items, have some lunch and then took the dinghy out to do some exploring. This area is covered in mangroves which drop [...]

We left early and headed toward the Dry Tortugas. There was a lot of wind and the seas were building. We had also seen some lightning toward the south so we decided to put in at Marco Island Marina. After a few hours at sea I noticed and odd smell in the cabin. At first I thought it was the engine until I felt the [...]

We left the dock at 9am after getting two new house batteries installed by Pete of Yachting Vacations. Dolphins and sea turtles greeted us as we headed out into Charlotte Bay and a few hours later into the Gulf of Mexico. We pulled into the Sanibel Island Marina just before sunset since there is no night sailing allowed. We had some quick Mac and Cheese [...]

Another night at the Burnt Store... We had a beautiful anchorage spot picked out for the night however due to circumstances with the boat we had to return to the dock. We have been told that the mechanic will be here in the morning to get the boat ready. It was a let down to only sail a couple of hours before experiencing a major [...]

We got about 5 miles from the marina when we noticed that the house batteries seemed to be loosing their charge fairly quickly. We ran the engine for a while but the charge just didn't hold very well. We called Yachting Vacations and decided to head back to the marina and get new batteries. Unfortunately the stores had closed by this time and batteries will [...]

Got up early, went for breakfast and returned the rental car. We had been told that we could not move aboard until 4pm and were trying to figure out what to do with all of the groceries and luggage between check-out and move-in. Luckily we were able to move aboard early and didn't have to sit on the dock with three carts full of gear. [...]

We arrived at Fort Meyers airport after a long night of flying with a layover in Atlanta. We picked up the rental car, got our luggage and went.... shopping. For the rest of the day. The rental car was loaded to capacity with dozens of bags full of groceries, 18 gallons of drinking water, brand new snorkel equipment, and our luggage. All this gear had [...]