Felt good to be back on the water and moving south. A little foggy this morning but it burned off quickly as we made preparations to leave. We said good bye to Ken & Peggy and JJ & Theresa (other live-aboards) our friends at the marina.
Our friends, Ken & Peggy, are getting ready to leave this weekend for 3 months in the Bahamas. It should be a great trip. THey are traveling with another boat.
The trip to Naples was only about 4.5 hours and the water was flat for the first half. After that there was some wind that came up out of the Southeast but the water was still good. Leaving early was great because there was not much boat traffic until we got close to Naples.
The coast is populated with many high rise buildings. I am sure most of these buildings are condominiums for all the people/snow birds in the area. Most of the high rises stop a mile or two north of Naples because all the residential is mostly homes from Naples south to the entrance.
The way into Naples is thru Gordon Pass and then about 3.5 miles north up the channel. The boat traffic reminded me of the Clinton River on a hot Saturday afternoon except that half of the boats were up on plane. We found that lack of courtesy is not limited to the Clinton River. Pretty crazy scene and it changed our mind about going the inside route to Everglades City. While it would be more scenic, the traffic would have made it a challange and somewhat frustrating. We will be going on the outside, in the Gulf, down around Romano Reef.
There is a lot of building going on along the water. All of it is residential and none of is is small. Lots of money in the Naples area and that is evident on the way into Naples. Naples Boat Club is very nice and far enough up the river that we did not have a problem with the wake from the crazies. The slip we have is tucked in along a fairway with the brockerage boats. It is pretty quite here after the private jets landing at the Naples airport quit for the night. There is a water taxi we can use to visit the restaurants on the water and a 2 block walk to the Naples Trolley.
The pictures are from early in todays trip as we left Port Sanibel Marina and went under the Sanibel Causeway bridge. One of my crew members did not take long to settle into a nap.