North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Fort Myers Beach

Preparing for the trip

Captain Jerry has been making the final preparations to North Star, our 32 foot Cape Island down east trawler. We are anxious to leave our landlubber lives behind and begin our long awaited journey around the Great Circle. Join us as we travel 10, 000 kilometers: through the historic Trent Severn Waterway; the pristine waters of Georgian Bay; the North Channel of lake Huron; and hop from beach to beach on lake Michigan. We will visit Chicago and begin our trek along the rivers: Illinois; upper Mississippi; Ohio; Cumberland: Tennessee; Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Black Warrior. We will have transited through 68 locks at this juncture. We have chosen the inner route from Mobile Alabama to Tarpon Springs Florida and the shorter Ocheechobee Waterway to reach the East coast of Florida. We will skip over to the Bahamas to wait out the winter before heading North on the Atlantic Inter Coastal Waterway.
The 10 years of researching and planning are finally at an end and we invite you to come along on our adventure.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Fort Myers Beach

We arrived at Fort Myers Beach on Thursday. We are at Old Bonita Bills Fish Docks Marina. The Bonita Bills Waterfront Cafe is behind us along with Tiki Bars and all manner of night life. Thursday night folks were dancing to a Canadian band, Deb and Ray. They were quite good, we joined in with our visitors, Randy and Natalie. They came by car and stayed with us overnight. Last night was karaoke so we just watched from the dock bar and stools. We can drink our own beer and yet be part of the action, cheap!

A short dinghy ride across the channel takes us to yet more Restaurants and shops and the Fort Myers Beach on Estevero Island. This is a touristy place with beach wear shops, shells and all sorts of colourful garb. There is a shrimp boat at the end of the next dock where you can ring a bell and the Captain will come out and sell you fresh shrimp. I have not seen this boat leave the dock since I have been here so how fresh can they be? A short dinghy ride down the channel, there are all sorts of fresh fish to be purchased and I have seen those boats leaving the dock. We will surely sample these before we leave.

There are tour boats and fishing charters as well as a fast catamaran that will take you to Key West in 4 hours. There is also an hour and a half pirate ship boat that shoots a cannon now and again. After all the quiet anchorages this will be an action packed stay.

We are here until the beginning of January so more on the action in the next few weeks.