With Kurlands

With Kurlands
Shell Point, Florida

January 19, 2006

Getting to Fort Meyers was interesting. We scrambled all day to get here
before dark. We were going into a difficult harbor and planned to take
a mooring ball. It had to be light enough to read the numbers on the
mooring balls. We made it after sunset with perhaps 10 minutes to spare
before it got too dark.

The good news is that we pushed the engine hard all day. 2000 RPM and
6.2 knots. It never overheated. Wow what a difference that new heat
exchanger made.

Last night was the first night in months that we slept in a bed that
didn't move in a room that didn't make noises. We are visiting with
Norman and Martha Kurland. They are friends from the Albany area who
snow bird here near Fort Meyers.

Norman and Martha live in a senior development called Shell Point.
There are lots of apartments (condos?) here, some including assisted
living units. It is a very attractive and very well organized
operation and it looks like a very pleasant place to live. One of the
benefits they have is guest privileges for boats to dock along a canal
that runs behind the units. That's how we got in here yesterday, after
navigating through more shallow waters and narrow channels. Actually,
Tarwathie is aground right now at the dock. That's because the canal
is deep only in the middle. At dockside however it is too shallow for
our keel. We're tied up to the dock but still the beam is more than one
meter off shore and we can't get her closer. We had to use very long
steps to get on and off. Oh well, no harm done.

The fear of running aground in Western Florida waters is almost
constant. I think that, plus prevailing wind conditions makes the
proportion of sailboats on Florida's west coast much less than on the
east coast and in the Keys.

Last night the Kurlands took us to a very nice restaurant here in the
building. Today we're heading for a nature preserve on Sanibel Island.
It sounds wonderful.

After Fort Meyers, we plan to make a passage across the Gulf . We may
head directly to Pass Christian Mississippi, or perhaps make a stop in
Mobile or Biloxi. We tried calling all the marinas and yacht clubs in
the Pass Christian area, but all their phones are disconnected. That's
an ominous sign.