Stuart to Sarasota, with an ironic twist

After spending a week and half over Thanksgiving at my brother's place in Stuart, it was time to weigh anchor and head over to the west coast. I had a great time over there, and even met up with Scott and Kitty again which is always a pleasure. Stuart was not my final destination though, and I'm now starting to realize I'm not sure if I have one.

I was getting desperate for some other crew and wanted to leave by the end of the week when a guy Chris responded to my ad on a cruising forum. I had sailed with people from that forum before, it was how I got in touch with Alex and got on the whole Hawaii/Alaska/San Diego expedition. Two days later he flew into West Palm and we left the following morning.

I decided to take the Okeechobee Waterway across the state as opposed to going around the tip of Florida and through the Keys. I've heard with the Gulf Stream so close to the reefs it can get a little intimidating trying to shoot between them. It only took us two days to get from Stuart to Ft Myers, with some great sailing on Lake Okeechobee.

We also traveled through 5 locks, two on the east side of the lake to bring Soveraine up to the level of the lake and three on the west side to lower her back to sea level. Most locks use valves to raise or lower the water level, but on these five locks they simply open the gates! It can be a shock the first time you see it, but it was pretty cool.

We spent the first night in Clewiston Rock City, at a dock that I was pressured into getting when I called to simply find the rate for the night. The guy at the marina called me all afternoon, assuring me he'd be there to show me where to go and tie me up, he kept saying his name was Little Man or something, odd and demeaning nonetheless. After navigating the narrow channel in total darkness with Chris on the bow with a spotlight, I gave him a call and he said he'd left for the night. I was kind of ticked since he had repeatedly told me he would wait, but he gave me another number to call, which didn't work. We found the dock, tied up and told ourselves that we would be out of there before dawn to give them the slip for such lousy service. Our plans were thwarted however when we met an Irish guy, totally out of place in Clewiston, who bought us round after round of Jameson shots. I forgot to set my alarm and woke up with Little Man standing right at the boat.

We were in Ft Myers the next night, after a thankfully uneventful motor the rest of the way across the state. I snapped this as the sun went down.

I saw Alaina for the first time in a year and half, she was living back in Ft Myers. Things went well considering the past and I saw her as nothing more than a friend. I invited her to sail with us the next day to Sarasota, which I didn't think she would take me up on, but she did. 

We were off the mooring early afternoon the next day and promptly ran aground south of Lofton's Island in a spot that was not clearly marked on the chart. We could have waited until the tide came up at 6 that night, but I wanted to get going so Tow Boat US came to the rescue. Underway again, we cleared out of San Carlos Bay around sunset and motored on a glassy Gulf of Mexico into the night around Sanibel and Captiva. The wind picked up on my watch around two in the morning and I set the sails myself not wanting to wake my crewmates. I turned the engine off and Soveraine slid over the light chop at 5 knots with a gently easterly offshore breeze. This was, more or less, the moment I had been working towards for over a year and a half restoring the fifty year old Allied Seawind, with a little twist of irony that Alaina was sleeping below on the boat I purchased with her former engagement ring as I completed the trip home to Sarasota. I'd that's pretty much full circle.

The sails came down at dawn and the engine pushed us between the Venice jetties as we motored up the ICW to Sarasota. Just before noon, Chris snagged the mooring pennant in the bay that I had fought against two years earlier, another small ironic situation. 

We took the dinghy ashore and walked up Main Street, back in my hometown.