..........--- Still Organizing -- Mosquitos ---
...............---Thurs./Fri. - Nov. 25th-26th ---
Day's Starting and Stopping Points:
Today's Starting Waypoint = 026°52.337 N' -- 082°13.930 W'
Today's Ending Waypoint = 026°52.280 N -- 082°10.384 W
Night's Anchorage: Small bay off of canal system.
Anchorage = 026°52.280 N -- 082°10.384 W
Our first morning on the water ended up with us being back on land. We had hoped to get rid of trash from living on the boat for about 5 days, but there wasn't a dumpster at the boat storage. We decided to drive out and find a place to dispose of it as we didn't like the thought of coming back to the Suburban after it had sat in there for 3-4 weeks.
We drove about 4 miles and found a dumpster behind a closed bank as it was now Thanksgiving. We also looked for a place to find one last breakfast ashore, but all the fast food places were closed. Walmart was a couple miles further down the road so we went there and had breakfast at a Subway there and also bought a car tow strap that I hope to adapt to pulling the dinghy better than what we had been doing (more on that later).
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We returned to the boat and finally pushed off and had our first, there would be more, experience with the docks with the tall pilings. In our other trips the docks were all low with flat sides and the fenders kept the boat off of the docks, but here all the docks we were at, only 3, had pilings along the sides and the boat hits or rubs on the tall pilings (see picture above) and the fenders don't do much. Well leaving the dock above the wind was coming in on the port side and Ruth turned the boat to port to try and leave the dock. We went about 8 feet and the stern was swinging to starboard and the BBQ. that hangs over the starboard side caught on a piling and at first I thought it was going to get ripped off. It didn't, but the support was bent slightly. She stopped and then backed the boat out a ways to port and then went forward to port and cleared the piling. Later we had more experiences with the piling and one didn't end as well as the one above. More about it later.
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...down the wide canal that had been put in to give water access to ....
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...some of the homes that had been built in the development.
A couple miles down the canal we came to an area that was more lake like and much wider than the canal. To get out to Port Charlotte harbor you went north at this point. To the south was a nice bay area with no one in sight. We first....
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..... threw down a temporary anchor on the east side of it and got into the dinghy and I paddled us up a narrow channel there.
I saw something move over under a tree and at first couldn't figure out what it was and at about the same time I figured out what it was so did Ruth. Our first alligator. A small one, but an alligator all the same. Ruth was sure that mommy must be near by and wasn't comfortable with the fact that the only thing between us and a potential mommy was the PVC bottom and sides of the inflatable Zodiac. We retreated to the Mac and over the next few days I had to do some Internet searches that prove my point, which was that alligators preferred people in kayaks vs. people in inflatables.
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Once back in the boat we decided to move over closer to the west bank and put the claw back down and stay there for the night.
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It was warm enough that we decided to put up Ruth's netting that covers the pop-top and ....
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....the whole cockpit. About this time we were treated to a nice sunset and no bugs were attacking us.
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In a few minutes we had the cockpit bed setup and were prepared for a nice night out in the cockpit.
We quickly feel asleep only to be awoke in the middle of the night with raindrops on our faces. It just rained lightly for a few minutes and during that time I pulled the bimini back forward and it covered about 80 percent of the bed, so the bedding didn't get wet. With the light shower over we decided to take a chance that there wouldn't be another and went back to sleep and didn't awake until morning.
Now the mosquito part. We didn't have any in under the netting when we sat out the night before or when we went to sleep. In the morning though I killed a good dozen. I couldn't figure out where they were getting in, but I think later I figured it out. The next night we sleep with the pop-top up and the cover on it. In Idaho where there where mosquitos we never seemed to have a problem with mosquitoes getting into the cabin, but the next morning getting up in Florida we had a handful in the cabin. Ruth put skirts on the outsides of the pop top cover when she modified it, but not on the insides. A few places the skirts were up just a bit. I think the mosquitoes were coming in under those places as from then on in we placed towels/clothing along the insides of the pop-top cover and only had a couple mosquitos come in. The next time we use the cockpit netting we will bring it inside the cockpit and put the cushions on it vs. having it hand down on the sides. As I write this, still on the trip, it hasn't been warm enough to use the cockpit netting and bed again. I'm sure next spring will give us opportunities though.
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The nights anchorage was by the bottom right arrow in the fresh water canal system a little over 3 miles from the ramp (bottom left arrow).
