Day 108
After a calm night at anchor just off the channel in the Florida ICW in Lemon Bay, on Monday morning, 12/28/20, we awoke to more perfect cruising conditions. The weather was slowly warming back up. Steve went back to wearing only shorts and a t-shirt up in the flybridge, but I stayed in long pants and a light jacket. We pulled anchor with no problems (always a plus) at 8:00 am, and were not sitting on the bottom, as I eluded to in the last post. Another major plus! Not too far south of our anchorage, we arrived at the Tom Adams bridge on the ICW and thought we would need another drawbridge raise. Fortunately, there was a bit more clearance underneath this bridge, but we hailed the bridge-master just in case. With his input, we finally determined that there was 24-feet of clearance available, which was ample for Legacy’s overall height above water, so no drawbridge-raise was required this time. We continued on down the ICW all the way past Gasparilla State Park, where we went through the pass and back out into the gulf to do some more traveling “outside”. The skies were perfectly clear, the sun was bright and the winds were so low, we had not quite glasslike water conditions at 10:00 am.
Out in the gulf, we cruised further southward just off the coast, passing Boca Grande, Cayo Costa, Captiva, and Sanibel Islands. Then we passed Fort Myers Beach, Estero Island, and Bonita Springs, as we neared Naples, of course dodging our “beloved” crab-pots the entire way. UGH!
At 2:00 pm, the weather was so perfect we unzipped the flybridge completely, and I went below to change into shorts and t-shirt as well. 😊 Legacy cruised right along, handling the seas perfectly and keeping her crew safe. Couldn’t have asked for better!
As we came into Naples, we passed inland, back out of the gulf through Gordon’s Pass. This was one high-traffic and busy pass! We both exclaimed how – judging by the number of boats darting everywhere inside this pass – it seemed much more like a Saturday or Sunday, rather than a Monday! As we slowly made our way down the pass, rocking from all of the nearby boat wakes, Steve showed me on the charts where we were headed – which appeared to be right smack dab in the middle of a swanky canal neighborhood in western Naples. It took several minutes and quite a bit of nerve to finally cross oncoming boat traffic and make our left-hand turn into the “cul de sac” of water, which was to be our home for the night. Sure enough, we were entering into the posh neighborhood called Port Royal. This was a known and popular anchorage, according to Active Captain, since it had plenty of depth and wind protection on all sides. Still, when we dropped anchor, there we were – sitting right in the backyards of all these multi-million-dollar waterfront homes that encircled us. We were positioned literally no farther away than half a football field’s length from any of the homes, with clear lines of sight into the large back windows of every house. I kept asking, “Are we sure we’re allowed to anchor here?”, as it seemed we must look to be stalkers, or lurkers, or even creepers! Steve assured me that the waterways did not belong to the home owners – they were considered public property – so we were well within our rights to anchor there for the night. Indeed, it seemed that many of the homes were not inhabited that night, which made me feel a little better, but still awkward. There was also another sailboat anchored a little way from us in our little anchorage, so we weren’t the only voyeurs, at least. We sat up in the flybridge for cocktails and to watch the sunset over the gorgeous homes and didn’t pull out our binoculars once, which was only respectable. I missed it, but Steve claims he saw one of the home-owners coming in on his boat to his dock, and he just waved and smiled at our boat anchored right in his backyard, like he was used to it and didn’t mind it. Sure do hope that’s how all the residents felt about us being there!
Position: N 26° 06.225, W 81° 47.459
Distance traveled: 80 SM
Total distance traveled: 2235 SM
Total marina nights: 89
Total nights at anchor: 18
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27