April 22- 26, 2017 Earth Day celebrated at nearby Bahia Honda State Park... and then the “21 days of blow” let up. We made a mad dash for Florida’s West Coast.

With our Harbour Cay Club friends handing off Summertime’s lines at 7:45 am on Sunday, April 23, we headed NW into the Gulf of Mexico.  The cruising conditions were so perfect at noon that we by-passed the Little Shark River, our original destination, and continued on to Russell Pass... making it an almost 12-hour passage day... an unusually long travel day for us!  We were asleep by the 7:50pm sunset.

  By 10 am on Monday we lowered the dinghy and began making the 4- mile run up the Indian Key Pass into Everglades City.  Since we had dined at the posh Rod and Gun Club 2 years ago, we opted to stroll across town to the City Seafood Market and Cafe. While savoring our Red Grouper Baskets, we were entertained by the numerous small airboats plying the shallow water of the canals with their tourists.

The Historic Rod and Gun Club 

We returned to our dinghy by a different route to discover that a flotilla of 9 motor yachts had arrived from the Cape Coral and  Fort Myers Yacht Clubs. They were in the midst of an extended cruise... with the Rod and Gun Club being their destination for that day. Remote Everglade City can be reached by land of sea. We saw a luxury RV Resort, an Eco-adventure outfitter complete with expansive B&B, the North Carolina Outward Bound Headquarters, a compound of pricey new rustic cabins and down the way a clutch of double-wide trailers serving nicely for fisherman. All options were good reasons to take a get-away in the Everglades... especially if money was no object. As night fall came upon Russell Pass, Summertime was joined by a sailing catamaran, a regular sailboat and then an interesting houseboat complete with black dog on the bow.

In 6 hours we made Tuesday’s cruise into Naples via the inside route through Goodland. We took a mooring ball at the Naples City Dock at 2 pm. After an on-board lunch and a nap, we walked past the historical art, fine dining and exclusive shop venues to the beach. To our great surprise, there was not a commercial venture in sight... only sand and sun and waves lapping on the shore and around the fish pier. With new floating docks on the future horizon, the Naples City Dock was closing down business this week. We were the last boat to be attached to Mooring Ball C and perhaps the last to take on fuel for our dinghy.  Who knew! The Active Captain web site had made no mention of this big deal.

Created by Darcy O Campbell