NoPistons -Mazda Rx7 & Rx8 Rotary Forum - back on the eastern shore....

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Well the picture is fuzzy and the details are sorted. I will say this I have a hard time walking on solid land at this point in the game.

Day 1, Saturyday, Our adventure started out North of Tampa Bay in the lowest tide of the year, we got a very late start, we had been told that there are times you can't get out of the marina.... this apparently was one of them https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.png After having boat-us tow us off our keel we were underway, due to crazy storms and unpredictable weather we were forced to stay in shore which of course would lead to a longer trip, but likely a safer voyage.

The first day we went strait through and landed at a marina in sarasota at about 6am, cool place and they let us stay there for free for a few hours, catch some sleep and back on the Intracoastal waterway. The intercoastal water way can lick my sack, it's poorly marked and impassible in some low tides. The 2nd day of the journey landed us in the middle of a NASTY storm, i had hoped to skirt it and make it the 3 miles to a nice marina, but it was not in the cards, this was a weather delay and again an unseasonably low tide. We stayed our first night on the hook in the storm and it was a bastard, woke up at a decent hour and made a short stop for provisions at the intended marina. This was however our first decent nights sleep.

Day 3, Next was a good run in good weather, although with such narrow channels there was little hope of putting the sheets to the wind and enjoying a sail. This was a good day, we dropped anchor somewhere near saint james island at 9pm, watched a movie on the new flat screen and got a great night's sleep.

Day 4, we got a great night's sleep on the hook and were beginning our eastward run into Fort Myers, we stopped at the Fort Myers city marina and decided that since we both needed to be back to work by Thursday, amy to her job and me to the charter job that we would make this an easy day run to a small marina called Rialto Harbor, just inside the first set of locks on the okeechobee waterway. Great place and we arrived there around 6pm, got some dinner and relaxed.

Day 5 Wednesday, This was to be our last day on this trip, we needed to stash island girl at a marina and meet my dad and head for home. We picked Roland Martins marina in Clewiston, FL on lake okeechobee, we arrive after the dockmaster had left which sucks as we had to leave the boat for two days, until Friday night when we will return to finish the journey. All in all this day SUCKED, we started in blazing heat only to run into a nasty storm which lasted us around 4 hours, constant rain, thunder and lightning. The okeechobee waterway and especially the lake is a bit of a sespool, it stinks, it looks like peesoup and although there is plenty to look at, it tends to not outweigh the crappyness of the water, there are NO markers on the first half of the waterway, i found the dug channel by floating accross the canal and looking at the depth guage, for the most part it's pretty deep and you don't have much to worry about with the exception of the floating debris.

After 5 days on the water it feels funky being on solid ground, when i closed my eyes in the shower tonight i about fell over. I wish we had taken more time or rather had more time on the journey, pushing through storms trying to reach goals sucks, when we finally decided we weren't gonna make it happen in our time frame and slowed down we enjoyed it much more.

here's a few pics! Photo Album