..................--- Marco Island -- Factory Bay ---
.................................--- March 17 to 21, 2011 ---
Nights Anchorage: 025o 57.840' N -- 081o 43.422' W -- Factory BayTrip Odometer: 115.9 miles
Days Mileage...: 8.2 miles
Up fairly early again and all of a sudden I thought I felt the boat move. Then I started thinking that we hadn't been moving. We get so use to the boat moving that I'm hardly aware of it unless it is real dramatic or I see things going by the window and realize they aren't really going by, but that we are swinging. Anyway I finally realize that we must of been on the bottom I thought that we had enough water under us the night before after consulting the depth finder and the GPS tidal info, but the boat had move as close to shore as the rode would permit it and evidently that was enough.
Now prior to this and the day before Ruth dreaded the idea of grounding. I think she had images of ships having their bottoms tore out on some rocky bottom. No matter how many times I told her that the bottom was mud in most of this area it did little to relieve her mind. Well I was now glad to tell her that we had gone aground during low tide this morning and had gone aground the day before and lived to tell about it. Still I occasionally heard, "how deep is it, how much tide is there going to be, we aren't going to hit bottom are we?". But at least I heard it less now ;-).
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Just on the other side of that vegetation is the Gulf and you can see that the tide had indeed gone out.
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The birds love the low water and are very active during it.
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Above is a view south from the anchorage. The channel empties out into the Gulf a ways down, but becomes very shallow and you shouldn't attempt to go out that way.
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So for us it was bring up the two anchors and start back up the channel a ways and make a starboard turn back...
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... down the inland waterway in the direction of Marco Island. It was a peaceful...
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... quite morning with hardly anyone on the waterway yet and the occasional glimpse of some of the highrises down at Marco Island.
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Once again we managed to run aground for a second on this stretch about in this area. I swear we were inside the channel according to the markers. We quickly backed off, but as we had gone aground the rudder kicked up and the boat swung 90 degrees in the narrow channel. There would of been a couple times when boats were very close to us passing us one way or the other that if that would of happened we probably would of collided with them. At this point there were only two rental pontoon boats anywhere near us and they were way out of the channel and one of those ran aground and the last we say them they were out in the water trying to push it to deeper water.
The long arrows above indicate the direction of travel in the area in the photo if you are going to stay in the channel marked by the channel markers you can see. If I went through this section again, from Naples to Marco Island, I would try and do it during high tide. The tide was coming in when we passed this way, but still you can see it is down some, bottom left arrow.
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We passed yet one more fellow appreciating and taking advantage of the low tide.
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We came in on the channel way to the left and then had to go out almost out into the Gulf before turning back up the channel into Marco Island, right arrow. I almost screwed up out at the turn. I took us out in a pretty strong current into Capri Pass to a marker where I wanted to make the turn back up into the other channel and badly underestimated the force of the current. The current was coming in and instead of making the turn just behind the marker I went pass it and turned to port. I thought I was well past it, but as I made the turn and the boat was at 90 degrees to the current it quickly took us towards the marker. I gave the outboard full throttle and turned harder to port and we slid by it not 15 feet from it. That was a bad deal, but was a real wake-up call about paying attention to the strength and direction of the current and nearby solid objects.
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With my heart still thumping a little we headed up into Marco Island and our destination, Factory Bay. Not sure why they call it that as I did not see anything that looked like a factory. From one of the guide books we knew Marco River Marina, also called Rose Marco River Marina, had fuel. We called them on the cell phone, I don't do well on the VHF, and they tried to explain how to find them. We knew the general area, but they told us to look for the new Tiki Hut, and of course us hicks from Utah didn't know what a Tiki Hut was so still were confused. I finally resorted to the VHF and they saw us and told us to turn to starboard "NOW" and we did and headed down the channel towards the fuel dock that was lined with those dreaded pilings that we hate so much. Also I had to make a 180 turn in the channel and we still have not had that much experience in getting to landings and such. To complicate matters, someone, me, who mounted the BBQ grill and the solar panels and the exhaust for the gen-set had not considering ever being someplace with pilings and all of the above hangs over the side of our small boat past the rub rail.
First the good news. I executed the 180 degree turn like I'd done it a 100 times before. Then I slid us in at an angle between two pilings and cleared them with the BBQ grill and the solar panel hanging off the starboard side and flipped the outboard in reverse and gunned it and brought us to a halt right at the dock. I threw the dock line to Bruce, the dock manager and a great guy, and then went onto the dock and tied us off.
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We took 7.5 gallons of gas in our 19 gallon tank.
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I went over and paid at the office and was really feeling good about things.
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Back at the boat I took another look at how we had defeated the 'Piling Gods' coming in and that the BBQ and solar panel were in good shape.
Ok now the "bad". Bruce, who would continue to be a big help over the next few days offered to help us off the landing. I'm like that's ok we will just depart like we came in, so my reply was 'we will be fine' and he left. I get the lines back aboard and Ruth holds us with the last one and finally releases it and pulls it in.
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I put the outboard in reverse and point it and the rudder out into the channel and we back out slick as can be about 25-30 feet into the channel. About now I'm getting a pretty big head thinking 'I've got this piling deal behind us'.
Now for the fatal mistake. I backed up, but left the bow pointed back at the dock about 20 feet in front of it. I should of backed and then turned the boat still backing so that it would be parallel to the dock but didn't. I put the outboard in forward and gave it more gas than I should of and we are now head straight back towards the dock. Did I quickly put it back into reverse? No, I'll just throw the tiller over and turn to port. By the time the boat responds the bow just makes the turn in time to avoid hitting a piling and the dock, but now the stern is swinging in towards the damn pilings and we are going way to fast. I try and correct by turning back to starboard hoping to miss the pilings and run parallel to the dock/pilings. This is all happening very fast and the throttle and gear shift lever aren't that handy at this point. The next thing I hear is a gut wrenching sound and the boat shudders as the BBQ and solar panel on the starboard side snag the first piling.
Now things are going downhill fast and the bow swings to starboard as the stern breaks loose. I turn to port trying to keep the bow from ramming a piling only to catch the next piling with the BBQ and panel again. Everything repeats for I think 3 to 4 more pilings before we clear the end of the dock as I never do have time to reach down and find the outboard controls. I'm sure people heard this a block away as our nice friend latter told us he heard it from the office.
I was just sick looking back and seeing the BBQ all bent up at an angle, the solar array all bent up with the starboard panel all twisted up and even the stern rail/pushpit on that side was bent up as it was attached to the above.
We went over into the bay a short distance and put the anchor down and I surveyed the damage with disgust. It was all my fault and I swore this wasn't going to happen again. We still had a lot of trip left, hopefully another month or two and we had really appreciated the solar panels as we had hardly run the gen-set at all. They had given us almost all the power we needed for the frig, computer, CPAP machine and navigation gear and we didn't want to give that up.
It was Friday, but still not that late in California where Solar Blvd was located. We had bought our panels and MPPT charge controller from them. I was able to get a WiFi connection with our long distance WiFi and got their number and called them. The panel we broke was our 80 watt, the 40 and 60 watt panels were twisted a little but their glass wasn't broke like it was on the 80. They didn't have the exact same 80 we had, but had another on sale for $160. That was great as I thought one was going to cost us $250 to $300. Well it still did as it cost almost $100 to have them overnight it to us, actually to the marina that we had just come from. I'd call the marina and Bruce said that it was fine to have the panel shipped to them and that he had heard us hit and was really feeling sorry for us. Solar Blvd had great prices and their service has always been good and we really appreciated the fact that they got this panel out to us overnight the same day that we ordered it. Check them out if you need a panel or controller.
The panel seemed to still be working despite the broken glass on it, but I disconnected it anyway as I didn't want it shorting out and maybe causing problems for the expensive MPPT controller.
We ate and settled in as best we could and figured that we would be here a couple days, at least until the first part of the following week.
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The moon was now full and except for the docking disaster things were good.
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Again I can hardly believe what the Cannon SX30is camera is capable of. The above picture and all of the others with the trip report were taken hand-held. This one above was on max. optical/digital zoom and filled the frame. I didn't crop it. Pretty amazing for a camera that was under $350.
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Since we were going to be here at least over the weekend we decide to go ashore and took the dinghy, arrow, the short distance over to the marina's dinghy dock. They charge a reasonable $5.00 a day and if you buy something in the ship's store they refund that. We needed a couple cheap gifts so bought something each day we used the dock for $10 to $15 and got the $5.00 back. Worked well for us and the staff was good to us. We also took some water containers over with the dinghy and filled our water while we were there.
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On the left is the office for the tour boat and on the right the ship's store where you go and pay for the dinghy dock.
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The Marco Island Princess went past us a couple times a day loaded with tourists.
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The Ship's Store.
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Out front you make a left and walk or get a taxi for the 1/2+ mile journey down to the shopping center part of town. We walked it a couple times and it wasn't that bad. No hills to climb here.
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Our anchorage with us on the left and a permanent resident on the right. Other boats came and went. The Sheriff's office visited us along with the other boats that were anchored one morning and wanted to check out our head. I relocated our head...
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...to the cabin area to free up the area where it was for a larger V-berth with storage for our cloths and other personal items and to also give us more battery and water storage. At the time we switched from the porta-pottie to Double Doodie bags, like wag bags, and really like them as there is no clean-up and we can easily store a month or more bags in 2 5 gallon containers, so no visit to pump-out docks. I showed the system to the deputies and once he saw that it was self-contained and could not discharge overboard they were on their way.
We took the damaged panel ashore and gave it to the staff at the marina and I told them that if someone put in new glass that it might just be good to go as it was still putting out according to my meter. They gave it to the young couple in the boat anchored by us and the husband came over and thanked us. They were young live-aboards with a couple young children and went ashore to work.
He also told me about Smokehouse Bay which was near and suggested that if we were there again to anchor over there as it is very protected. Where we were was about the worst place we ever spent 3-4 days at. There was a lot of traffic out on the nearby waterway that we would soon take south and that traffic sent a lot of waves into the bay and we would really rock and roll with them. About the worst we have ever experienced except for maybe the houseboat waves on Lake Powell. At least the waves during high winds come in on the bow. These were coming in on our beam. We almost moved over, but stayed put. Check out the other anchorage below though if you plan on spending any time at Marco Island.
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After going ashore Saturday we just hung out on the boat Sunday rolling around in the harbor. I put out quite a bit of scope usually and started to get worried about all of the small boats passing so close to us coming and going in and out of channels leading to houses behind us.
Also over the weekend I got the BBQ back to about where it was and worked on the solar array structure so that it would be read for the new panel when it arrived. It was still bent up some and the aluminum uprights had torn/cracked partially through but it was a lot straighter. The final fix would have to wait until the boat was home and I had access to my TIG welder.
You can't see it above because it wasn't there, but I finally slid a small fender down the anchor rode leaving it floating in the water where the rode went in to draw attention to it. Probably paranoia, but I at least felt better.
Monday morning we walked back down to the stores and bought a couple things waiting for the solar panel to show up. It finally arrived and I installed it fairly easily since it was narrower than the old one. To still put out 80 watts though it was longer. This wasn't good as now it stuck out even further that the old one did and would require even more care in docking if we docked on that side.
I had to drill some new holes in the panel and the solar array support ,but that was easy to do using one of the 12 volt drills we have on board.....
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.... We actually have 2 along with a companion jigsaw. I can give these Craftsman tools very high marks. I wondered how they would perform being only 12 volts. They basically have the power to do anything I use my other higher voltage drill/drivers for and now use them exclusively at home. They are just.....
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... some of the many tools we have aboard. We have a large tool box with .....................
... SAE tools, another with metric, lots of nuts, bolts, wiring and wiring components, and even some standing rigging wire along with a hand swagger aboard. Not much we couldn't fix on the water if needed.After installing the replacement solar panel we tidied up things for a morning departure and again enjoyed the ....
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... moon yet another night. The shadow across the face of the moon is one of the spreaders.
