Captain's Choice blog: Ft. Myers Beach to Marathon

We ended our stay in Ft. Myers Beach with a get together Friday night at the Woodrow's house, the Seafood Festival with the Martins Saturday night and a long walk at the beach with Rosemary Sunday while Mark got the boat ready for voyage on Monday. We also had an unexpected visitor Sunday night. As we were watching television I heard someone/something on the back of the boat. I pulled the curtains back and a pair of beady eyes were staring back at me. It was a furry bandit...a raccoon and he jumped up on the steps of the boat when he saw me, Mark opened the door and he walked onto the dock and scampered away. He was looking for a tasty morsel but didn't come up with anything from us!
Thanks again to all of our Buffalo friends in Ft. Myers for your hospitality, we throughly enjoyed our stay.

Initially we planned on staying at Ft. Myers a few more days but the captain had been watching the weather and winds and the best 2 days for travel were Monday and Tuesday. We had to wait for the tide to rise just a little before heading out Monday and we stopped and fueled up at Ballard's Oil first. We met the infamous "cowboy" who mans the fuel dock and is a very interesting fellow and then we were off to Marco Island, 42 miles away. We anchored in Smokehouse Bay in 11' of water with great protection, which wasn't needed because there was barely a breeze. There is a dinghy dock at the Winn Dixie grocery store and restaurants along the water but we were stocked up and ready to grill and eat some home cooking. The homes in the bay are beautiful with lighted landscapes that illuminated the bay all night.

Up early on Tuesday we traveled the remaining 98 miles to Faro Blanco Marina in Marathon. There are at least 10 looper boats here (current loopers and gold loopers), some we know and some we will get to know. At docktails that evening we found out there are more scheduled to arrive between now and mid February.
It's a good thing we traveled Monday and Tuesday as the winds definietly kicked up and there were small craft advisories Thursday. We are scheduled to be here for the remainder of the month and we will start watching for a good Bahama crossing towards the end of January.