Depart: W. P. Franklin Campground 10:40
Arrive: Cape Coral Private Dock 2:30
Distance: 27 NM
For those "loopers" who know about Kitty's dock, that was our destination for today. Given the shallow water on the channel leading into Kitty's place, we had to delay our departure this morning to target an arrival at Kitty's approaching high tide. Given that, we had no rush to get up this morning and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while reading my most current book.
Clark called the lock before we dropped our lines to make sure the lock would be ready for us. The lock master told us to wait 15 minutes and then come. As we did our final preparations to depart, I took a walk up to the public restroom. Everywhere I looked campers were preparing their motor homes for departure. Some boats had already left their slips and more planned to depart as we did.
With the mass exodus one would think we were all under mandatory evacuation orders. Signs posted all around the campground offered a "pot luck" Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. I guess that just was not enough incentive to keep the campers on site.
When we left our slip and came around the corner to the lock, we found the lock ready for us with a green light.
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| Entering W. P. Franklin Lock |
On the "final stretch" of the Okeechobee Waterway, we travel through a tedious section with slow speed no wake for Manatees.
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| Power plant at start of manatee, slow-speed zone |
After we passed the power plant, I decided to go below and make lunch. I brought Clark up his lunch and then stayed below to eat and read more of my book. I missed the rest of the slow speed area (and the scenes below) as I became too enthralled in my book to notice where we were or what we were passing.
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| Metal Sculpture Artwork on the waterway |
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| Open Railroad Bridge |
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| One of Clark's "down the tracks" pictures |
Clark thought about diving under the boat at W. P. Franklin campground to inspect the props for damage until he was told that a big old alligator liked to hang out in the area. Gulp! Better wait for a waterway with a bit more salt in the water! Given that, I knew that Clark wanted to drop anchor on the Caloosahatchee River to inspect the props on the way to Kitty's dock.
When Clark put the boat in neutral to work the anchor, I quick had to put down my boat and jump into "first mate" mode to assist. We dropped anchor at 1:15 near marker 68. The water temp read 75, but I convinced Clark to put on a "shorty" wet suit for his shallow dive under the boat. He found no visible damage to either prop. At least we know neither prop is severely damaged by the thunk we heard the other day. Clark had us back underway at 1:55.
The channel heading in to Kitty's dock is quite shallow in spots. I watched the depth sounders closely as we came into her complex. The lowest we saw was 0.7 feet under the keel meaning just under 5 feet of water. Thankfully we only saw that small amount of water for a very short period of time and then it climbed back up to more comfortable numbers.
The man-made lagoons where Kitty has her dock have street signs on the intersections. We passed a dead end named Phoenix and then turned on Pentagon, Partridge, and finally Roanoke to arrive at Kitty's dock. On doing so, we passed a little statue that I have seen on prior trips to Kitty's dock.
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| Fisher boy statue |
Kitty was standing at her dock ready to grab our lines as we came in. As soon as we docked, Kitty and Clark started talking and hardly stopped. At some points during their conversation, my eyes glazed over as I heard terms like "Pentium II processor", "CPM", "DOS", and "8088". Kitty's house is full of electronic gadgets. For example, when she gets a phone call, the whole house rings. If the front door is opened, the house talks and says the door is open. It is pretty amazing.
The three of us had a pot luck dinner tonight. Kitty provided the steaks and dessert, and I provided the pasta primavera side dish. Tomorrow for Thanksgiving, we will have another pot luck dinner to share.
Tonight, we got to see the still "almost full" moon. The moon is truly a full moon on Friday. It looks pretty big already.
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| Almost full moon in the sky - looks just like the street light below! |
The sunset was not as impressive tonight as last night.
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| Sunset at Cape Coral, FL |
11/22/2018 Thanksgiving Day!
No travel
The three of us, Kitty, Clark, and I, agreed that we would have a joint Thanksgiving Day dinner at 1:00. I decided to prepare a close facsimile to the traditional meal but substituted chicken for a turkey. We did have stuffing and cranberry however. Kitty prepared the potatoes and provided ice cream for dessert.
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| Thanksgiving Dinner |
After dinner Kitty put Clark to work hooking up her new fire pit to the propane. They got it set up and working. Later they took apart the pool heater mechanism to pull out the capacitor that she planned to replace. Otherwise, we had a leisurely day by the pool.
Clark managed to find time to get the obligatory sunset picture for the blog.
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| Sunset in Cape Coral, FL |
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