2023: Port of the Islands FL

 16 March 2023 

We got a late start to our day today. Eventually, Clark and I went up to register and pay for our stay here at the Port of the Islands Marina. 

We found the dockmaster to be a rather talkative chap. Combining Clark with the dockmaster meant that an hour passed, and they had not even gotten to the point where they discussed payment. I stayed for a while to listen but finally gave up and decided to walk back to the boat to get breakfast. 

Recently Clark was informed that his credit card may have been compromised, and he would be provided with a new card which we have not received yet. No sooner did I get to the boat than I had to turn around and walk back to the dockmaster's office to pay with my card. By the time I finally got to eat, it was almost lunch time. I decided we should just go with a brunch and skip a meal.

Here are some views of the marina and surrounding area we saw while walking around.

Dockmaster Office and Ship Store

Popular Boat Ramp

As we approached the boat ramp, we saw a man driving a truck backing his boat into the water with his wife sitting inside ready to drive the boat once it was in the water. 

The Port of the Islands Marina shares property with the Port of the Islands Resort and has a restaurant called Angler's Cove. 

Inside the hotel where the restaurant is located ...

Grounds outside the hotel ...

Apparently to get to the South Pole, one must travel directly through the earth as that arrow on the sign below points straight down.

Classic X miles to ?? ...  sign.
Key West - 109 mi
Cuba - 229 mi
South Pole - 7055 mi

Some interesting boats in the marina ...

Classic Tug - "Cruz-In"

2-seater Go Cats on the Water

We decided to go exploring this afternoon by dinghy. I told Clark that I wanted to get a load of laundry done and would be available to go exploring at 1:00. While I finished up the laundry, Clark got the dinghy prepped and ready to go.

One of the many things Clark discussed with the dockmaster this morning was the local waters that we might want to explore 

Possible Mangrove exploration circled in yellow

and places we might choose to anchor should we decide to visit again in the future.

Looks like a good place to get lost

When the conversation finally got around to paying, it became clear that we had checked into the equivalent of "Hotel California" where you can check out but you can never leave. We came in on a near high tide at 6:00 last night. The high tide on Friday, the day we plan to leave, will occur around midnight, so we either don't leave at high tide or we travel foreign waters at full dark! 

With only 6 inches to spare coming in here when we did, leaving at non-optimal tide seems truly sketchy. Clark asked the dockmaster for a recommendation based on the tidal data available, and he said to leave at 1:00 p.m. on Friday to arrive at the shallowest place around 1:45 to get the most out of the available water!

With registration, laundry, and brunch completed, we managed to start off on our dinghy ride shortly after 1:00 as hoped.

Views of the marina ...

We quickly went from this ...

to this ...

It seemed like everywhere we went we ran into shallow water. We agreed that we should have gone exploring in our kayaks instead of using the dinghy.

Clark kept pulling up the outboard due to the shallow water. Apparently, he ran it one time with the engine not getting water for coolant.  When he saw no water coming out of the engine tail, he turned it off, but it was too late. We had no power to get back to the marina, but we did have two halves of a kayak paddle. Clark took one end and I took the other, and we started paddling!  The truly disappointing thing was that the only wildlife we saw during our exploration were two birds. 

Green line shows our dinghy path
under power of outboard motor

Traveling using kayak paddles was very hard work. The dinghy is extremely heavy with a 40 hp outboard on the stern. We had to deal with wind and current. Every time I quit paddling to stretch my muscles, Clark would yell, "Keep paddling or we'll lose ground!" I paddled continuously on the starboard side while Clark steered with his paddle from the stern. When the water was shallow enough, a frequent event, Clark propelled us by using the paddle to "pole" the boat.

On the way into the mangroves, we passed a boat where several people were fishing. When we came back the other way, that boat was gone. Finally, after far too long paddling, we saw a house (yay civilization) and then eventually we came upon a boater who yelled, "What happened?" When we answered, "We lost our engine.", he asked where we were going and offered to tow us. Thank goodness Clark said yes. We tied up and had a pleasant ride back to the marina. As he said farewell, he introduced himself as "Captain Billy". 

He dropped us off at the entrance to the dock where "Sunset Delight" is docked. The wind helped us as we paddled the last few feet to our boat. In fact Clark was afraid that if we did not paddle we would overshoot our landing spot at SD's door! After all the fun, it was now 3 o'clock. We were gone two hours and only about 1/3 of that time was spent actually exploring in a working dinghy!

The orange line shows the portion we paddled  / poled.
The blue line showed where we were towed.

Since today was Clark's birthday, we went to the Angler's Cove Restaurant for dinner. Clark had steak and I had grouper. In honor of Clark's birthday, I had NY style cheesecake for dessert. He got to watch me eat it as he decided not to order dessert.  I paid the bill since he is still waiting for his credit card to show up in the mail. He laughed when I said it was my treat since the money comes out of our shared account.

Having missed breakfast for an early lunch, I requested we go to the restaurant at 5:00 for dinner. That meant we were back on the boat early and could connect via Facetime with our family in Connecticut before relaxing in front of the tv for the rest of the night.