Today we left Punta Gorda Isles Yacht Club as a guest of Ellen Andreas, Jack's mother. Ellen is 91 and everyone at the Club knew her. Still active going to dances and swinging. Best to her and again thanks for sponsoring us at such a wonderful facility. Special thanks to Jack for asking her for us and lending us a car while we were there. It is definitely on the list to come back to.
We waited to leave until close to high tide due to the shallow water depth in the channel. Our friend Tom McGarry came about 1 and we took off.
What a beautiful day. Wind was blowing in the low double digits (out of the direction we needed to go of course), temperature was in the 80's and a beautiful blue sky.
The deep part of the river is fairly shallow by Punta Gorda so we made 2 tacks before we cleared into a wider part and did about a 5 mile tack. But then we tacked back and made a 10 mile tack that took us right to the entrance of Burnt Store Marina.
We were initially doing about 5 kts but once we got onto the longer tacks we were doing over 7 kts and made it very quickly and nicely to our destination without using the engine. There were many other boats out sailing in the perfect weather.
We enjoyed having our friend Tom along to help with the sail and to show us where the slip was.
We are enjoying this slip courtesy of Cathy Bleakly. As a homeowner in the community she has free dockage rights so we are able to use it for a couple nights as we prepare to head to Key West on Friday.
Hopefully we will see manatees in the morning. We understand they congregate here so we look forward to breakfast pals.
So now it is a beautiful night with a nearly full moon above. It is quiet with the halyard of the yacht club flagpole clanking in the breeze.
Really looking forward to getting back out and sailing to Key West on Friday.
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