Trailer Tri Adventures

Stayed at the Rock Reef Resort Wednesday to yesterday am (Saturday). Paul and I kayaked Thursday before we went to get Jim up at Flamingo in the Everglades National Park.

Snorkeled off the beach Friday. Face to face with a 3′ barracuda. No probs. Lots of upside-down jellyfish. Not sure if they sting but I had a full swim skin on, gloves, booties etc just to be sure.

Lots of Iguanas and geckos here too. Beautiful green lizards of some kind. There is the odd mockingbird, cardinals, woodpeckers, and other birds around as well. Yesterday while Kayaking, I saw a big pink bird flying. Maybe a pink Flamingo but more likely it was a roseate Spoonbill.

Friday afternoon we had a look around the catamaran storage and sales across the street. Paul picked out a few boats but the price on his favorite, the 60′ custom Fountaine Pajot, was just a bit out of his reach. Incidently, the 60′ Jeanneau monohull with all of the hull damage has been roughly-patched and is now a home for some of the yard workers! Apparently it’s beautiful inside and they’ve got A/C in there as well. Crazy!

Then we met our friends Carolyn and Dave Shearlock for supper at the Islamorada Fish Company that night. Yummy. Carolyn has a great website called theboatgalley.com with super tips for Cruisers.

In the shallow basin by the restaurant deck, there are big tarpon swimming around ( 5′). If you buy a bit of fish food,  they may swarm while you feed them along with other fish such as small nurse sharks.

Ended the day with handmade ice cream from Mr.C’s. Delicious.

Jim did two nights out on the edge of the Everglades. The wind was on the nose the whole time and the mosquitoes were thick. The winds are to be light and on the nose again for the next few days so he’s done.

We hauled the boat out and trailered it to our hotel in Key Largo. Sadly, a little screech out flew out from the side of the road in the Everglades right into the truck.  Paul tenderly pulled its little body out of the bumper the next morning.  Poor thing.  I didn’t feel so badly about the gazillion mosquito bodies plastered onto the truck.  More on the Rock Reef Resort later. All is well.

Jim texted me last night while we were at dinner with the checkpoint captains and some of the racers and their supporters. He was not too far away as the crow flies but is still a half a days sail away. He anchored in the north end of Lake Ingraham. He says his Tracker button doesn’t seem to be working which explains why we aren’t seeing his footprints on the Find Me Spot Map.

He can still send OK messages and he is still shown on the RaceOwl map which is another tracking map which the Watertribe uses. You can see a link to it on the Watertribe tracking map. Try this Link   http://raceowl.com/EC2017/RaceMap3

Paul and I are staying at the Rock Reef Resort in Key Largo. We left the trailer at Flamingo and will go back there today to meet Jim when he comes in to check it out. I believe his plan will be to sail on to Key Largo to the Finish. Here is a picture of Willymakeit’s position this am followed by more pictures from near Homestead, Everglades National Park and CP 3.

So…Paul and I have been hanging out at Flamingo most of the day watching the comings and goings of the Watertribers. Some came in, went out and came back in shortly thereafter (a crew on a Nacra 20 broke something so only had 1 rudder). Others rested and left.

One guy, Lawless, who had run into trouble early in the race and abandoned,  decided to sail from Key Largo to here today in his West Wight Potter 15. Downwind was good for him.

Paul is helping the guys fix their tiller. What a nice group of folks. Everyone helps each other.

We’ve been waiting for word from Jim. We are only getting Ok messages from him now and then. Tonight it seems he is off Cape Sable. Not sure if it’s for the night or not.

We think he’ll be along in sometime!!! (Earlier estimates were clearly wrong…oh well)

Today the Team drove from our hotel at The Port of The Islands Everglades Adventure Resort and Marina south into the Everglades through Everglades City to the small village of Chokoloskee. The village has some vacation condos, some modest homes and a great mud beach for Everglades Challenge Checkpoint 2.

Once we arrived, we watched several Watertribers sail or paddle in. We met up with Blackbeard again and chatted with Penguinman (whose real name is also Jim). Lugnut and Havanamana were there doing a few repairs to Oracle.

All of the positive chatter amongst these guys, along with the very sailable conditions, prompted our dear Willymakeit to quietly say, “I’m inspired. I have the urge. I’m going to do it.”. Paul jumped in the truck, backed the boat to the water and before you can say his new Nickname “Betterlatethannever…,” he was off!

We watched him for a while down at the historic store at the south end of Chokoloskee, then he was gone. Hope he remembers to push the Tracker button on his Spot tomorrow as I think he forgot today.

It was about an hour later when I turned to Paul and said, “Did you happen to see his bug nets?” Dammit. I think they are in the boat. Sure hope so. He has lots of bug spray as well as a new buff to cover his neck and face (it’s a cloth tube of very lightweight material to keep off sun, bugs, snakes in the face. Etc.) so he should be OK.

The chase team drove along hwy 41 through Big Cypress preserve (Everglades National Park) and stopped at the Oasis Visitor center. It’s THE best place to see gators up close on that road. They are in a kind of ditch with a bunch of fish like gar, catfish, etc and there is a viewing platform do you can see them sleeping just below you. The biggest was about 12′ though we saw one swimming way down the ditch that had a huge snout so it may have been bigger.

It’s a favourite stop of ours on the Tamiami Trail. Some years ago, Jim and I spent March Break camping in our van in Florida. Not far from Oasis on the Loop Rd is a free campground next to a boat ramp. I remember washing my hair in the water next to the warning sign about gators and Panthers. Fun!

We made our way to a Travelodge in Homestead (nice!). Tomorrow we will drive out to Checkpoint 3 at Flamingo (in the National Park) to hopefully meet up with Jim.

We got two Ok messages from him and the tracker shows that he is at a little key south of Chokoloskee.

If you would like to see where he is, here is the link

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0hlVOxxemXc8t8LOgziAlb3iqsOnZ8T7H
If you can’t see a tracker map, please let me know and I’ll try to help.

Videos on another post later

Worked our way south from FMB to see if we could scout out more shelter spots along the Everglades Challenge routes for future races.

We saw several Watertribers moving along the Gulf Coast. Only one we could identify was Gadget Girl (aka Linda Wright) in her Weta Trimaran with carbon fiber sails. We saw Herron the beach at Lovers Key State Park near Naples.

We also watched a young or small dolphin fishing very close to shore.

Saw ugly yellow and black smoke in the air nearer to Naples. Apparently there is a wildfire burning in the Picayune National Forest. There hasn’t been much rain here since September someone told us. We heard that it’s burnt 6 houses so far!

We travelled further to Goodland, a laid back fishing village near Marco Island. Saw one Triber going through the passage there. Windy though!!

Enjoyed some cool beverages and snacks there.

Stopped to see an Alligator in a ditch…

Finally on to our hotel. It’s super nice. It’s the Port of the Islands Everglades Adventure Resort. Had a dip in the pool, now the guys are playing billiards without guys from California who came to check out the Challenge!

Tomorrow we hit Checkpoint 2 nearby at Chokoloskee.

Now that Jim has decided not to do the Everglades Challenge, he and his crew (posse, shore team, groupies, whatever you want to call us…) have decided to follow the route south to check out the check points at Chokoloskee and Flamingo. We can also scout ramps, docks, waterfront eateries (bars), places to shelter, etc.  We will end up in Kay Largo on Wednesday to have a few days to play before the big Tribe party on Saturday.

Already on our trek around Fort Myers Beach, we saw a few Tribers as they make their way south. We ran into ‘BlackBeard’ on the beach and he was bailing out his Boat (a Hobie Kayak of some kind) and said it was a wet ride. His plan was to continue into the night along the Gulf shore as it was not too wavey! We found that on the inside route through the mooring field down the ICW that the strong winds were really funnelling and it was quite choppy. We saw one paddler in there but don’t know who it was.

Pretty interesting to follow the Tribers on FB (sorry it’s a closed site) and on the Tracking map. So onward we go!

Monday am update: SewSew has made it to CP 2! Wow. Reports out of CP 3 at Flamingo that the water has blown out of Florida Bay due to the high east winds so it’s extra shallow. There is a Small Craft Advisory down there too.

Also,  the picture of the big catamaran we visited is called Bolero and it belongs to a nice couple we chatted with while walking the dock in Fort Myers. Sharon and Joe invited us aboard for a visit and a tour.  I think we were their first visitors as they have just gotten her. They have 3 little dogs aboard and are planning to live on it. The boat is a Fountaine Pajot Lipari 41. Great spacious salon. We wish them Fair Winds.

Today we are off to Chokoloskee to explore.

Well. Wind, as we know from many years of going to sailing regattas, is often your friend… Or not!

Today’s start to the Everglades Challenge was postponed for a day as there was (and likely still is) a small craft wind warning. If that happens,  the race organizers have a deal with the Coast Guard to not start a race. Fair enough.

The wind conditions are supposed to be the same as today all along the course for the next few days with high waves and the winds not diminishing at night, making it difficult to even anchor comfortably.

So Jim has decided to pull the plug on this year’s Challenge. He wants to have fun, not die!!! 

We went back to the beach to de-rig Leftovers and found that she was one of the last on the beach.  Most racers have retired or have moved on to Checkpoint 1 at Cape Haze Marina where they will try another start at 7:00 am tomorrow. We won’t be there. But we will be interested to see if they actually start.

At the beach at Fort de Soto, Randy Smyth’s Scizzors, which has a wing sail (!!), will start from there tomorrow. The man is a machine.

So, instead of racing, Jim and Paul will go kiteboarding nearby tomorrow!! This afternoon after we packed up the boat, we went to the nearby bridge beach where the Tampa Big Air kiteboarding competition was being held. Wow!  Paul brought a couple of kites and his board so that’s our plan for tomorrow.

Thanks for all of your support and good wishes. Special thanks to Mike Morris and Bob Magill for coming to the start that wasn’t today. Great to have some FYC’ers there.  Bob, I’m sorry we missed you but we went back to the hotel for a nap after the big announcement this am.

Jim is a bit bummed but he’s ok with his decision. It’s the right decision.

We are under a weather hold as winds are too high. That’s the deal with the Coast Guard. Nobody may launch in a small craft wind advisory! So back to the hotel for a nap.