Integrity Cruise

Day 272 - Ft. Myers to Ft. Myers Beach, FL

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Day 272: Monday, January 23rd: This morning we did final preparations to leave port and be on the hook for a few days. We filled the water tank, emptied the holding tank, did laundry, etc.

We said "hasta la vista" to our new friends in the marina as well as our old Looper friends. It's always sad to wave farewell to friends like these. The boating community, particularly the Great Loopers, is like an extended family.

As we left the marina Ruth snapped some last pictures. Here is "Joe's Crab Shack," where we had dinner with David and Diane Hay Friday night:

And here is the high-rise condo that dumps dust and construction dirt on all the boats.

This scene gives you a feel for how large the marina was and how condos are taking over the view of the horizon. They are everywhere!

Our planned run today from Ft. Myers to Ft. Myers Beach was a scant twenty miles but we wanted to get fuel before we left the relatively inexpensive Ft. Myers area. The cheapest diesel ($2.289/gal plus sales tax) was at Ballard's Oil Company. They cater to the shrimp boats, so do a volume business.

Arriving in the pass behind the beach, one can believe it is a boating crossroads. There are the native boats like Big Daddy:

The shrimp fleet…

.. and the cruisers in the mooring field:

After fueling we took a mooring ball to save some money. This is the first mooring ball we have "picked up" since starting the trip. The floating balls are anchored using a huge block of concrete, and a tether rope leads away for about fifteen feet. You tie your mooring line to the tether (in our case we use a harness from each forward chock); it looks like this:

The huge shrimp fleet sits idly on the north shore. Fuel prices and imported shrimp have all but put these guys out of business. They can't afford to buy fuel to go shrimping:

It was a pretty, but not spectacular, sunset in the protected harbor:

Sunset signaled the casino ships to get underway for the night's dinner run. Look under the center of the bridge to see the stern of one headed out to sea:

And sunset signaled us that it was suppertime. It was good to be eating home cooking again.

Position tonight: N26 27.383 W081 56.948

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