Inaugural Train

At Sea
26 10.33 N 081 51.56 W

Never before have I had so many comments and emails about a blog post as I got about the story of me getting dunked. I agree; stories like that are fun for everyone.

It is definitely a stretch to say that we are on the Inaugural Train, but we are on the way to Fort Meyers to watch the Inauguration with our friends Norman and Martha from Albany. It will be first for Libby and I. We've never seen Obama speak before. Everyone says he's a great orator, so this will be our first chance to see that for ourselves.

We holed up for three days at Marco Island because of weather. It was just too cold and the wind was too strong and from the wrong direction for us to head out. Temperatures before dawn were down to 39 F (4C) making it hard for us to even get out of our warm bed. Today's weather is much better. It is warmer and the wind shifted 45 degrees to the east. Our passage to Fort Meyers Beach should take only 6-7 hours instead of 15-18 hours.

Marco is not a place to our liking. It is densely populated by rich people and rather snooty. We needed some groceries so I took the dinghy in to the Marco River Marina. They charged me $5 to land the dinghy; that's OK. Then I asked if we could pay to use the showers and laundry. The man said, "Absolutely Not." I thought he was curt, almost rude. I walked up to the store, noting the Bentley cars in the the parking lot and the yacht sales room with giant power boats on display at the glassed
-in indoor showroom up by the road. Near the Publix grocery store are Gucci and Dior kiosks. Signs of conspicuous consumption were all around; very distasteful to us. No doubt, my bearded, threadbare, salty appearance was equally distasteful to them.

At least we were not harassed by the Marco Police. We anchored in the very spot infamous among cruisers as the place where the police harass cruisers attempting to scare them away. It has been the subject of several court cases that Marco lost. I'm happy to say that we spent 68 hours in that spot and were not harassed by anyone.

p.s. I removed that Blurbbits map in the right sidebar that showed our recent past positions. I had several complaints from readers that it was interfering with their ability to read the blog posts. Readers come first, features second. If you ever have trouble reading the blog, please let me know.