Week 9 — days 96-102

Day 96, Tuesday, March 11

As forecast, much nicer weather today. Breezy, but no insane gusts.

Outboard engine uncooperative. Once it started, it ran flawlessly. 10m40s to shore 10m24s back to Red Ranger. Starting it was really, really difficult.

Burning off fuel in the line? Maybe not helpful.

Waiting 5 min while strangers ask what’s wrong? She starts. Twice now she's started after a little rest period. Both times when a stranger asked if we need help. One more pull and whoom! So. Conclusion? It needs some time to cool down after almost starting?

In spite of the engine problems, we now have groceries. We had a good dinner.

And a view of Mercury again.

Day 97.

Today we motored through light air from Ft Myers to Cayo Costa. This was a (happily) uneventful trip for 6 or so hours. We're anchored in 7’ of water with a wonderful view of the state park.

Looking at the weather, our original plan to transit the lock on the 16th isn’t ideal. It will be blustery Saturday and Sunday.

Considering the weather, we’ll move up to El Jobean tomorrow. We'll transit the lock at 16:30 Friday.
High tide gives us 1.4’ of water. We might make it.

We came out with less than 1’. It was very bad. See 2025 Cruise, Week 1

We could wait until Sunday, when there will be 1.7’. There will also be a hellacious N wind. Wednesday at 18:25 there will be 1.9’. But. We don’t really want to wait that long.

Away from the city lights, Mercury was almost visible. The monocular was required, even out here in Cayo Costa.

Day 98.

Motored up to El Jobean. Beautiful day. Light air. Calm seas. This is about 4 hours of motoring through some very pleasant -- but shallow -- waters.

Mind the depth, it's rarely more than 12' deep around here.

Day 99. Friday, March 14.

The dreaded South Gulf Cove lock. Day 43 we left with 0.92’ of tide and it was awful. We plowed our way out. It was simply awful.

I’ve been dreading this return for 46 days. Dreading.

Today. 1.4’ of water and we could glide though without a problem. What. A. Relief.

Day 100.

Gusty conditions. But. All we have to do is motor back to the Safe Cove dock. Once there, we can start cleaning.

Day 101.

The cleaning ramped up seriously today. We have a decommissioning checklist. Before that, however, we have a ton of stuff to move off Red Ranger. It might not be a full 2,000 pounds. But, it is filling the back of our F-150.

It's 15 years of accumulated things. Some things were good ideas. Some things never worked out.

For example, we have a collection of salt-water fishing tackle. Polls. Line. Hooks. Lures. A "yo-yo" setup. We've never used any of it. We were always too busy sailing to even throw the yo-yo's hook and lure.

Today, we took down our flag. I turned off the masthead anchor light. Kind of sad that we’re not going anywhere.

Today we emptied the last of our nonsense from the V-berth. It’s now full of sails and related gear. Much of the pass-through was cleaned up and some of the engine room.

Day 102, Monday, March 17.

More unloading prior to decommissioning. The saloon is completely filled with piles of stuff on the cabin sole that go to the truck. It's very difficult to go forward past all the things to use the shower in the forward head.

(We need to run down the water in the tanks. Long showers for everyone!)

When we move off the boat — to a short-term rental on Tuesday — we’ll be able to clear out the aft cabin, also. Once we're in the rental, we can sort the remaining things into "keep" and "give away".

On the dock, we met some North Carolina folks who are getting ready to depart for the Bahamas. They're a family of four. First-timers to cruising. We gave them some old charts. We gave them our grease gun while talking about their jammed anchor windlass. We gave them an anchor snubber while talking about keeping the stress off thd windlass gypsy. We gave them a dinghy anchor because we won't need it.

Late in the afternoon, we took our gear to the rental. Wednesday, we’ll get hauled.