Marco Island - Smokehouse Bay anchorage

Sunday 1/7/2018

Depart: Cayo Costa Anchorage 7:30

Arrive: Marco Island Smokehouse Bay #1 Anchorage 3:10

Distance: 64 NM

Checking the tide charts yesterday and knowing we had a fairly long distance to travel today, we set our alarm for 6:45, so we could leave before we lost sufficient water depth to escape the Cayo Costa anchorage. The wind whipped the burgee on the bow of the boat into a frenzy all through the night. This, in addition to the cold outdoor temperatures, made for a pretty miserable night for sleeping at anchor. Even though I wore several layers of clothes and piled multiple blankets on the bed, I still felt chilled. Every time I rolled over, I had to warm the sheets in that space all over again.

Clark and our sons used to go on winter campouts with Boy Scouts. I do not know how they did it! I checked the room temperature when I got up this morning, and the thermometer in our room showed about 55 degrees. That read warmer than I expected given the chill in the air. I dressed in multiple layers in preparation for our traveling before the sun had a chance to work its magic.

With 5 layers of clothes on top, 2 pairs of pants, and 2 pair of socks, I felt like the boy in the movie A Christmas Story who could not move his arms due to the layers of clothing he wore. The good news is that, unlike our boating friends in South Carolina trying to make their way to Florida, we do not have any snow on the docks or icicles hanging from the front of our boat!

Because we were up before the sun, a rarity, we saw the sunrise this morning.

Sunrise at Cayo Costa Anchorage

Although running on less sleep than usual and moving reluctantly due to the cold air temperatures, we did manage to have the anchor up and be underway by 7:30. As usual when we want an early start, we skipped breakfast until after weighing anchor. By the time I got down to the galley, I was more than ready to eat.

Most of our travel today was on the Gulf of Mexico, and we had a long, tedious trip on the Gulf today as we spent the majority of our time watching for and avoiding crab traps. As soon as we became complacent and less diligent in our study of the waters, like magic, a crab trap would appear in front of us. To make matters worse, for a large portion of today’s trip, we drove facing into the sun. This added to the “Oh Crap! A Trap!” situation as the bright light made them more difficult to see in advance.

On two separate occasions, I got a big surprise. We saw something large and brown in the water. At first I thought it was some weeds until we got closer. As it passed by us, I realized that it was a sea turtle. Clark tried, but did not manage, to get a picture. Later in the day, when Clark had stepped down below to check on some things, I spied another one – very similar in color and size to the first. I did a quick scan of the waters to be sure no traps sat in our path and maneuvered myself outside of the full enclosure to get a picture. Just as I got ready to snap a picture, the sea turtle took a dive and disappeared. Alas, no evidence!

With low-to-moderate chop on the Gulf most of the day, we saw very few other boats on the water. At the end of our run, as we approached the Marco Island inlet, a boat sped past us. “Where did he come from?”, Clark asked amazed. Neither of us had seen him until he passed us.

Due to the wind chill, I had my hood up and my arms wrapped around myself to keep warm. That fast boat had half-a-dozen people sitting on the open bow, without coats, enjoying the ride. What?!

Approaching Marco Island, Florida

We have stayed in Marco Island, Florida on previous visits to the state. Today Clark decided to try a new-to-us anchorage in Smokehouse Bay instead of Factory Bay. With that plan, coming into Marco Island, we needed to take the channel to the right. We had a confusing field of red and green markers in front of us marking the channel options. As we watched the fast boat approach Marco Island, he turned right. When I asked, Clark confirmed that we needed to follow the same channel.

That boat disappeared in a hurry.
Follow that wake!

We used the "road map" provided in Active Captain to get instructions on accessing the anchorage. Notes in the app said that the channel leading to the anchorage is very narrow. It is!

Narrow channel ahead leading to Smokehouse Bay

Not only was the channel narrow, but Clark had wind / current making the steering interesting and forcing him to “crab” in. Fortunately, we saw depths here of around 18 feet of water, so at least we did not have to attend the depth finder too closely while managing tricky steering.

We passed some houses as we made our way to the next instruction.

Houses passed as we made our way towards Smokehouse Bay

Instruction: Turn to port at Marker 11

(nice of the bird to help identify our turn)

Winding our way into the anchorage, we made our way past more houses and markers; 

we found an osprey nesting on one!

When we finally reached Smokehouse Bay, we had two options for anchoring, and we explored both. At the first option, we found some shallow waters due to shoaling, so we traveled to the other end of the bay to take a look at the other option. There we found a nice anchorage for a smaller boat than ours as we like to have a lot of swing room and this space was too tight for our needs.

We went back to the first option and found a place to drop anchor.

Colorful buildings in Marco Island
along one edge of the anchorage

One of two trawlers with us in tonight's anchorage.
It just happens to be a Mainship 350/390.

Unfortunately, Internet is poor here; over-the-air digital television is worse. Perhaps the buildings block the signals. Fortunately, we do have Verizon service. After we settled in at the anchorage, I opened a book on my Kindle and got comfortable reading until dinner time.  A friend turned me on to BookBub.com, and now my Kindle is stuffed full of free books to read, so I have my pick of reading material.

Later, as sunset approached, I reminded Clark to get the camera ready.

Sunset at Marco Island - Smokehouse Bay

Clark and I like to watch 60 Minutes on CBS. The terribly weak, over-the-air signal made it nearly impossible to follow the story line. Clark put the television on mute, and I pulled up News Radio 88 on my phone, so we could listen to the sound portion through the radio station broadcast. We got the video portion sporadically to go with it. When the show ended, I turned both off for the night -- time to find alternate entertainment! No more TV tonight.

Note: If travels go as planned, tomorrow we will have no services - not even phone - as we plan to be in a remote anchorage as a final stop on our way to the Florida Keys.