Closing out the year.

We are underway northbound in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore of Gasparilla Island as I begin typing. It's nearly flat calm out here, perfect weather for an offshore run. [Update: We are docked at the Venice Yacht Club (map) and are looking forward to dinner at their tiki bar.]

Flat calm out here. Gasparilla Island and its lighthouse in the background.

Last Saturday we tendered ashore to The Boathouse for dinner; the entire restaurant is open-air and the weather was perfect. The live music was understated and the food and the drafts were fine. After dinner we strolled out to the Hinckley boatyard and back, just to stretch our legs.

Sunday morning it was a short two-hour cruise down to Fort Myers, where we slid into the anchorage with just millimeters under keel and dropped the hook in a familiar spot (map). I was surprised to find but a single other boat in the anchorage, the lone long-termer left here. I splashed the tender to explore, hoping that perhaps a better dinghy option has reopened.

Headed to Ft. Myers in dead calm, but the city itself has been swallowed by a fog bank.

Sadly, the bulkhead around the Oxbow restaurant remains the lone option for landing ashore here, but I did notice that they have begun rebuilding the Legacy Harbour marina, three full years after it was destroyed by Hurricane Ian. No progress whatsoever has been made with the nearby city marina. After landing at Oxbow I strolled through town to check up on the restaurant scene, ending at the Publix for a few needed items. With a dozen beers and a half gallon of milk in my pack, I opted to take the free trolley on the way home.

Our friends in town, Laura and Ben, were unavailable for dinner but could meet us after 7 for cocktails, and so we headed ashore for a late (for us) dinner around 6, ending up at Cabos Cantina. Afterward we strolled the town and then met up for drinks at the newly-opened G-Spot tap room, in a space formerly occupied by the Voodoo brewery. They had lots of draft handles but I don't give them good odds. The company of friends was superb, though, and we really enjoyed catching up with them.

City tree in the park with the Luminary hotel in the background.

I spent most of Monday morning making phone calls. Now that we have a semblance of a plan, we can schedule some things during our stay, and I also tried to make yacht club reservations for the transit north. The big thing on my list, however, fell short: doctors appointments. I leave Florida Blue at the end of this year for Medicare, and evidently the paperwork for that means many providers will not even let me schedule appointments until it starts. I'll be scrambling to schedule everything first thing on the morning of the 2nd.

Engine stop solenoid after peeling off the painted-on label.

I also spent time disassembling the engine stop solenoid and carefully peeling the over-painted manufacturer's label off it. The engine has of late not wanted to stop when so commanded, and I might need to replace this solenoid. The engine manufacturer wants $750 for a new one, but it really costs just a tenth of that when purchased on the open market. I needed a part number so I could get the specs.

Mirror-image shot of the writing still stuck to the pain after carefully peeling away the sticker.

At dinner time we tendered ashore in some chop and walked to Fancy's for dinner, a recommendation from Laura and relatively recently opened. We recognized it as the former Twisted Vine, where we had Christmas dinner eight years ago, on our first visit to Fort Myers. The food was quite good.

Dinner at Fancy's. We sat at the very nice bar.

I had booked our free night at the St. Charles Yacht Club a bit further downriver for Tuesday night, so that we would have the whole of Christmas Eve to move over and get settled in Glover Bight. High tide was late afternoon and it is a shallow entrance channel, so we weighed anchor in Fort Myers after noon and arrived at the club just a little after the tide had come up above zero. The sounder screamed the whole way but we made it without incident and backed into our slip (map). We were closed enough to the muddy bottom that we opted not to run the seawater air conditioners and just used the pilothouse mini-split instead.

The club was closed, as it is every Tuesday (we would have stayed Wednesday instead, but they were closed for the holiday), and so we took a Lyft the mile and a half to Citrola's Italian Grill, who had decent pizza, salad, and draft beer. After dinner I walked around the tony gated community within which the yacht club is ensconced, marveling at the complete lack of sidewalks and street lighting. Surely even the ultra wealthy have to walk their dogs, but that's not easy here. It's so blue blooded that even the STOP signs are blue.

All the stop signs were blue. No joke.

We faced the same tide situation on Wednesday, and so we secured permission to linger until 3pm, when the tide would again be above zero (and rising) in the channel. After working on remediating some rust and washing down the salty foredeck, I took out the e-bike and rode to Target. One item had been missed on my Publix run, but I was also on a Secret Squirrel mission: to put something under the tree.

Every year we have had at least one or two gifts under the holiday tree, usually stocking-stuffers from our nieces and their mom. They sent some this year, too, but they are waylaid in our mail drop near Jacksonville. It seemed somehow out of norms to me that there was nothing to open on Christmas morning, and so I scoured Target for something suitable. I settle on a box of dark chocolates, which I secreted in my backpack for my arrival back home.

After a nice walk around the club grounds, we dropped lines at 3pm. We made it out the channel again without incident, crossed a very busy Okeechobee Waterway channel, and had the hook down in Glover Bight (map) before 3:30. On this visit we found three boats aground, one sunk, and four other cruising boats. We were happy to get a good spot.

Vector at anchor Christmas Eve in Glover Bight. Boat behind us had nice holiday lights.

Apart from Marker 92 (and its adjoining tiki bar the Nauti Mermaid), where we were booked for Christmas dinner, the Westin complex has two other restaurants, The Gather and Next Door, but both were sold out Christmas Eve. In hindsight I should have made a reservation a lot earlier. Instead we tendered around the corner to the Cape Harbour marina and ate at Fathoms, which was blissfully uncrowded. I had booked an inside table but it was so pleasant we ate on the patio. I was surprised to see that the lock just at the entrance to the canal system has been removed and the canal is now open to sea.

I opened this gift bottle of home-made limoncello for Christmas Eve.

Sometime around midnight I surreptitiously wrapped the lone gift, apparently not quietly enough because I got a "what's that noise?" intercom call from the stateroom. It is sometimes said that life on a boat can be distilled down to two questions, "what's that sound?" and "what's that smell?," and we're both conditioned to wake and query any unfamiliar sound. I managed to get away with it and stuffed the box under our ceramic tree with a "from Santa" gift label on it.

To complete the whole Santa illusion, Louise was by happenstance up before sunrise Christmas morning and noticed it right away. I stumbled up much later, and after the ceremonial unwrapping of the gift we tendered ashore for a walk around the marina complex.

Our dinner reservation was for 4pm so I put on a sports jacket for the first time in a long while and we tendered ashore a few minutes early. The restaurant was surprisingly uncrowded and we faced that quintessentially Floridian Christmas dinner question: "inside or out"? We did not want to chance ending up in full sun so we chose inside, which was over-air-conditioned and I was glad I brought the jacket.

The hotel did a nice spread. One of several stations.

The buffet spread was very nice, with all the traditional holiday flavors, and we stuffed ourselves to the point of popping, another holiday tradition. We paid around twice what it was worth, as hotel buffets go, but that's the holiday/resort/captive audience premium, and we did not have to cook or clean. It was a fine way to have Christmas dinner.

Our friends Dorsey and Bruce aboard Esmeralde celebrated their holiday in Boca Grande, a ways north on the west coast, and we had discussed maybe stopping by there on Boxing Day as we made our way north -- it's just about where we would normally make our first stop anyway. But weather windows being what they are, they texted us to say they would be leaving Boca Grande for Sanibel to take advantage of this outside window to get to Key West.

The main event. Freshly carved turkey, ham, and prime rib.

That would have us literally crossing paths in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) and waving at each other as we went by, and that felt like a missed opportunity. So we re-jiggered our plan to anchor off Sanibel last night instead. That made yesterday a very short cruise, and after one last walk around the complex we weighed anchor in Glover bight to catch the last of the ebb the whole way.

The Miserable Mile was only moderately miserable, with one incident wherein I had to divert around a big power cat drifting in the narrow channel without answering the radio or the horns. It was otherwise an OK cruise, with holiday traffic more like a weekend day than a weekday. We had the hook down in a familiar spot just west of the C-span of the Sanibel Causeway (map) just after lunch.

In due time Esmeralde passed us on their way to the marina on the other side of the bridge, and at dinner time we tendered over to Gramma Dots in the marina to meet up with them. The place was surprisingly busy, but dinner was good and we enjoyed catching up. After dinner they invited us over for some delicious home-made chocolate cream pie that Dorsey made for Christmas. It was a lovely evening, even if we had to bash our way home through the chop.

Esmeralde slowed to greet us as they passed.

This morning we were up early to beat the turn of the tide. We decked the tender and were underway at 7:30. I had my sights set on a familiar anchorage off Manasota Key, making for a three-day trip to Pass-a-Grille, with another stop at a yacht club in Sarasota tomorrow. That would have us running up the GIWW in weekend holiday traffic, which can be a less than pleasant experience, especially in the shallow sections.

With conditions out here in the gulf nearly ideal, we were lamenting that there was really no good stopping option if we went outside today. Even though they had told me a week ago that they were fully booked for tonight, with a wait list, I took a chance and called the Venice Yacht Club as we made our way up the GIWW. We got lucky; one of their members decided to go out for the weekend, and they told me they could get us in.

Today's greeting committee. We had four or five playing up there at one point.

That makes everything super easy, and we turned out into the gulf at Boca Grande Pass, turned north up the swash channel, and as I wrap up here the plotter says we will be in Venice around 3:30. I've canceled the Sarasota stop and we will go right back outside in the morning and all the way to Pass-a-Grille, arriving a day ahead of plan.

You'll next hear from me next year, when we should be settled in for a month at a nice resort in Treasure Island. We already have a New Years party and several appointments on the books, and I have a project list the length of my arm. We wish everyone a very happy and safe New Year celebration.