Days 253

Venice Fl - Boca Grande FL

• Start 8:30 AM
• End 12:45 PM
• Underway 4:10 Hours
• Distance 30 Miles
• Total Miles on Trip 4361
• Av Speed 7.4 knots
• Weather Cloudy , 70 Degrees, Wind 9 Knots S

After a leisurely start to the day, we left Venice and headed 30 miles south to Caya Costa to anchor for the night. The first half of the trip reminded me of the Erie Canal, very long stretches of a manmade rock lined canal. Much like the Erie Canal, there are bike/walking paths on both banks, house and even a high school. The only thing missing from this canal is locks and free dockage! After the canal the waterway opened up to several wide open bays.

The bays are very deceiving, if you stray outside of the marked channels it can get shallow very quick. We had one close call and Dan & Cheri (Cheri Baby II) did touch bottom. They channel made a 90 degree turn, but it seemed to me that one of the channel markers may have been missing. We had been traveling in 10 feet of water and knew the turn was coming up so we should not have missed it. As I saw Dan come to a stop, my depth alarm went off, show just 3 feet of water. As I was backing up, Dan radioed that he hit bottom, and I could see the mud he was churning up. Luckily he was able to back out with no issues.

One thing we have found is that smaller boats love to see how fast they can come by you, and how close they can get. It gets rather annoying, and I can see why most loopers advise against traveling on weekends in Florida.

We arrived at the anchorage at Cay Costa and anchored without any problems. As soon as we dropped the anchor, it grabbed the bottom and held tight. Once we were set, Dan & Cheri came along side and rafted up with us. Dan counted about 40 other boats in the anchorage with us.

After lunch, we launched the dinghy's and headed for the State Park. The only way to the park is by boat, and other then the park tram, there are no vehicles on the island. They do have free docks at the state park that are first come basis, but the largest boat they can handle is 30'. After beaching the dinghy's we headed out to explore the park. There are signs posted throughout the park, warning you that there are alligators, and not to feed or harass them, and if you see the in the posted swimming area to nothing the park rangers. We walked to the lagoon hoping to see some but there were none to be seen.

There are about 15 campsites on the island and to camp you arrive by boat or ferry, and take the tram from the dock, to the campsites. The campsites are about a mile from the docks. Definitely hardcore camping. After walking around the island, we took the dinghy's to a small cove looking for manatees but like the alligators there were none to be found. We knew that the water was probably too could for them, but it was fun looking.

It was nice to spend the night at anchor, a perfect sunset, the boat rocked gently, and the waves slapping gently all night long. It was perfect until 5:19am, when the anchor alarm went off. (Think VERY LOUD truck backup alarm) I quickly ran up to the bow to make sure we were not dragging the anchor, and we were fine, we had just spun around when the wind and tide shifted.

We woke up to light rain that later turned to fog. Hopefully it will clear before we head out to Cabbage Key, three miles south of here. We cannot get into our slip until 3pm so it should clear up.

Next stopped Cabbage Key.