Feb 19

We had a wonderful day with the Portmans, went to visit their place, a really beautiful campsite where I saw my first alligator in a pond on the site, and I had been on the look out for so many hours, but they are very hard to spot. We took advantage of being in a car and went for a big shopping spree to the Wall mart, RadioShack and of course the West Marine. Great day.

Next day we motored to Bokeelia Island and had again a nice anchorage. We took a dinghy ride into town, but as soon as we wanted to tie the boat, people came immediately to tell us we were on private property. We had to go to a wall and hoped it was okay. After lunch we dingied home and decided to leave Bokeelia to the Bokeelians. But we had a very nice dinghy ride into a mangrove little river.

We moved back to Useppa Island for two days. Went to a private harbor and did as if we belonged there, made a walk over the island, a wonderful place so lush with plants and birds and very expensive houses!

Tuesday we sailed to Sanibel Island and anchored in a bay north of S.I. We made some long dinghy trips because the only thing we could get in the neighborhood was bait!! So Jacques went to Pine Island which was a long and wet ride.

Thursday we went to Estero Island by way of the” miserable mile”, it is really called that way, because it is a very small channel and when you would go a little outside you would be stranded, we were a little nervous and were fixated on the buoys, but made it without a problem and stopped at Moss Marina, where we had reserved a place for 4 days. Nice Marina, nice people and it was the cheapest we had until now.

We took a bus ride to Publix, a big food store and filled up with everything we needed and walked around the beach area and tomorrow Tom is coming!!!!!

Ria