4 Nights in the Everglades

4 Nights in the Everglades

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Stats for December 19, 2018

Origin: Fort Myers Beach

Destination: Russell Bay Anchorage

Distance: 68.5 miles

Speed: 7.8 mph

Time on the Move: 8 hours and 47 minutes

While we loved Fort Myers Beach, we knew we needed to keep moving because there was some nasty weather predicted later in the week and we were trying to stay on a schedule to get to Key West by Christmas without missing too much other good stuff along the way.

That meant that we were up and out of Pink Shell at first light to start on a long day heading for Everglades City.

You can see the waves we were trying to avoid here. Pink means somewhere around 15 foot waves and red means 18 footers. 3 footers are about my limit for a comfortable cruise. Everglade City, where we were heading to hide out is just south east of Marco Island on the map.

This map shows predicted winds of 25-35 knots or up to 40 miles per hour.
This last weather graphic shows the predicted winds and wave heights for different routes around where we would be.

As you can see, watching weather is a big deal for us, especially when we have passages to make through big, open water. The boating community talks a lot about weather, so everyone gives their opinion on what will really happen and we all check the latest forecasts every half hour or so when something exciting is developing. We want plenty of time to make a plan and get tucked in!!

And look at the beautiful sunrise we got to see as we ducked out of Fort Myers super early to cover some miles.

There were several other boats heading towards the Keys on this morning, but not too many. We passed by this fishing boat, out nice and early.

Breakfast with a view will never get old.
Trying to familiarize myself with Bahamas chartbooks.

There seemed to be 3 separate parts of our trip to Everglades City. First, we had a quiet morning, calm until Naples or so. Then, between Naples and Marco Island, the seas grew and clouds covered the sky. It didn’t look like such a good day to make the long trek at this point. However, once we passed Marco, the skies cleared and the water was a beautiful shade of green. It was like a whole new day.

I sat out on the bow for part of that last, beautiful stretch, and it was amazing.
Hayley and Mike joined me up there for a while. Who knows what craziness the boys were getting into. The only bummer was all the sea salt getting stuck to my leggings.
Rough life, I know.

Since it was such a beautiful afternoon, we decided to anchor in a little bay outside of the entrance to Everglades City and enjoy the weather before the wind and waves began the following afternoon. It was a peaceful spot, surrounded by mangrove trees. At least it was until we were attacked by 034583702 noseeums that came, blood hungry, right through the screens that were open. We literally went screaming downstairs, closed every window that was open, and didn’t come up again until well after dark. Those suckers are brutal.

The white dot shows where we were anchored. It doesn’t look far into the shallows, but it is very shallow through much of that bay. While I was relaxing on the bow, Mike was carefully lining up our path through channels so we would avoid the 2-5 foot areas that lead towards the channel to the Everglades.
Our peaceful anchorage about 5 seconds before the noseeum infestation.

The next morning the winds were already picking up. We knew it was just going to get windier throughout the day and the waves would really kick up the day after that. We put the dinghy up and headed in to the marina at Everglades City as soon as we could to avoid driving and docking in higher winds and at lower tide.

Pink in the morning, sailors take warning!! But it sure makes for a beautiful sunrise in the Everglades. You can see the water isn’t as calm as the night before–winds already picking up.

Stats for December 20, 2018

Origin: Russell Bay Anchorage

Destination: Everglades Isle Marina

Distance: 6.4 miles

Speed: 6.6 mph

Time on the Move: 57 minutes

The tide was heading out as we were heading in to the marina, and we passed thru some very shallow water and some very narrow areas. It was unnerving to travel through such skinny water with the wind gusts we were up against.

We passed by the famed Rod and Gun Club right on the channel.
We came right down that channel on the left there, fought against the wind for a bit, and ended up in the slip on the corner. Luckily, all of the slips were empty and we could pretty much choose where we wanted to go because the wind and currents were vicious. Tying up was not an easy task and I’m pretty sure Mike asked for new crew several times during the process.

After checking in, we immediately headed to the beautiful pool. We were amazed by the beauty of the facilities. Everglades Isle is an RV resort first and foremost, but the developer added many strong floating docks along the channel, and he certainly spared no expense with the common areas. I instantly rated it as tied for the nicest marina I have come across on our trip (Killarney Mountain Lodge would be the other #1). This was a PERFECT place to wait out a blow!!

Look at that beautiful pool with built in tiki and bar and fountain on the left.
Lots of Daddy fun in the pool. Tobin actually started swimming without his life jacket today!! Woo Hoo!! All those lessons have paid off!!

We worked on our laundry for FREE and swam most of the afternoon away. Mike spent most of the time working on our ongoing inverter issue. We made it back to the boat just in time for the front to move through and dump some major rain and wind in the area. The kids watched Harry Potter while I watched the rain pour down, folding laundry. We enjoyed a lazy rest of the night.

All of a sudden, that beautiful day was gone and the clouds moved in.

The Everglades are known as the stone crab capital of the world and we were docked in a working harbor with lots of fishing boats and lots of airboats that give tours. There was plenty of entertainment on the water around us with all that going on.

Look at all hose crab traps stacked up!!

The next day was windy and uncomfortable. We were thankful the boat was tied up in a protected harbor but still put about 10 lines on it to hold it in place. We found all kinds of things to keep us busy on this blustery day. We played Clue in the clubhouse, and I took lots of pictures so I could show off the beauty of this place.

They built a lighthouse on one corner of the clubhouse. The kids loved walking up to the top and walking around the outside catwalk.
Our view across the road from the top of the lighthouse. We went on an airboat tour with this company, too!
What a magical place to read!! Hayley loved sitting at the bottom of the lighthouse and snuggling up with her book.

Later in the day we went for a walk around town. It was trickier than it sounds because the winds had blown water over some of the roads, so we had to take a few detours to keep our feet dry. We finally made our way to a stone crab lunch. Look at all those colorful crab pots decorating the outside of the restaurant!!

I love this sign hanging in the restaurant. So true!!
Here’s the view of our boat from the restaurant. It was nice to keep an eye on her in the wind. You can see that there weren’t any other boats there.

When we got back from the restaurant we had all kinds of recovered goodies. Coconuts for everyone and even a crab pot float that had blown away. Mike thought it looked like a great souvenir!!

Trying to figure out how in the world we get these coconuts open. Thank goodness for YouTube!!
Not as easy as it seems like it should be!! But we finally got it and enjoyed some fresh coconut!!
There were Chickee (“cheeky”) huts built all over the property and some of the owners even build them on their lots. Chickees are Native American style houses that were popular with the Indians in this area of Florida. We were lucky enough to have a public Chickee right in front of our boat that we had lunch in several times. Also, we got invited inside one of the private Chickees to check it out and it was amazing how much it was like a real house. The thatch roof didn’t leak, and since there were walls, the air conditioning was very effective. It had a full kitchen, bathroom, extra bedroom, and even an attic. What a great space!
We decided to head to the theater room for our own showing of “Madagascar” and saw this rainbow on the way!!
This private theater room was pretty amazing!! We were living in style at Everglades Isle!!

The only bad thing about staying in this spot was the constant drone of airboats. I’m not even sure it was really BAD–just something to get used to. The major tourist attractions here are the airboat tours of the Everglades and the fresh seafood. We hadn’t seen a gator since we were in the panhandle, and even then, I don’t think the kids actually saw them. We decided INNTW and went on an airboat ride. It was awesome!!

We picked a company that has very small airboats so we were the only people on our tour which was amazing! Thank goodness for those noise cancelling headphones, because those babies are loud!!
At first I thought the tour wasn’t much different than what we could do in our dinghy, but then we started skimming over branches and roots in just inches of water and flying around corners and it was AWESOME!!
This was the only gator we saw, and we were pretty lucky that we got to follow him for a while down the mangrove channel. It was interesting to see how the tourboat operators from different companies work together to get all the boats in to see something cool when they find it. Great teamwork.
We also spotted a mama raccoon and a few of her babies crawling around in the mangroves. You can see one of the babies hugging mangrove roots in the lower middle part of the picture.
After our tour we got to check out some more live gators and ask a million questions. Colin is holding Jelly Bean.
We just loved Jelly Bean!!
Marshmallow was raised in captivity since he was very young and has been handled by humans every day since then. As a result, the gator man said he didn’t have any natural instincts to hurt or fear humans, so we could get right up close to him. Tobin and Colin apparently really trusted Marshmallow and the gator man. I didn’t feel quite as comfortable and Hayley was absolutely terrified from far far away.

We loved our Everglades Isle stop and recommend it to all Loopers. The history of the area is so interesting to me and there is so much natural beauty. It was a great spot to wait out some weather, but now that the wind and waves are past, it is time for us to keep on moving!

We finally caught a good sunset on our last night in the Everglades.

Thanks for reading and following along on our adventure!!

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