We are presently anchored in the back part of the anchorage at Cayo Costa state park (Pelican Bay). We arrived about 17:30 yesterday after leaving Factory Bay at Marco Island at about 07:30. We had a great sail on the first half of the trip, the wind was on the beam or just abaft of beam.
The sad part of this part of the trip is an old friend is travelling south and we were hoping to meet up. We had a plan to meet in Marathon later in March but that all fell apart with the virus and our need to get home. Yesterday they were planning to go into Cabbage Key for the night and we in Pelican Bay just 1.8 nm away.
It would be tricky for him to get in where we are and we have our dinghy up and motor prepared for lifting the boat. On top of that the virus and our precautions. So the great reunion of 2020 will be postponed for this season. Good luck with your travels and P and W stay safe.
On our sailing passages from Little Shark River to Marco and Marco to Cayo Costa we had visitations. Little birds migrating from Mexico to Florida flying across the gulf of Mexico. In our case they were ‘yellow breasted chats’. The first one flew into the cockpit and landed on my knee. He hung around for a while before carrying on. Throughout the next couple of days little groups of these birds would fly by, a few would stop. We put food out, they don’t appear to like butter chicken… Other migratory birds included some storks and one loon.
We saw lots of turtles and fish balls. We were close to Florida most of the time and the fish balls were everywhere.
Today we will begin to strip down the boat and prepare here for the yard. Jimmie and Sue our Arkansas buddy boat, helped us immensely by moving the truck from storage to the boat yard. That saves us a bunch of time and inconvenience in trying to get home. I should have told Jimmie to remove the cover from the truck. He cut holes to see and said there isn’t much of the cover left now as he drives 80 mph all the time. Sister Mary Francis?