Day 143: Friday, January 25, 2013

Port to Port: Fort Myers Beach

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 0      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First time playing Doodle Dice (try it you’ll like it).

Mile to Mile: Our plan for the day was to enjoy the company of our friends Eddy and Linda on Spiritus. Our day started with a leisurely saunter through the Farmers Market right here at the Marina – we were on the lookout for fresh sticky buns but ended up with some just picked strawberries and fresh baked bread. We returned to Aurora and baked some cinnamon rolls (turned out perfect) and shared some strawberries, grapefruit and orange slushy for breakfast.

Now that we were all fueled up for our busy day, we started our random walking tour of Fort Myers Beach. We skipped most of the touristy shops for now and headed south along the beach to soak up the warm sun and cool sand. We walked and talked and laughed our way down the beach and headed inland to show off the beautiful new Fort Myers Beach Library (Eddy likes libraries and Linda is a teacher so this is probably much more interesting than the 23 shops with all the same tourist trap – future garage sale – junk in them). We wandered by the grocery store and then checked out the Diamond Head Resort where Linda and her sisters are going to be in mid-February for their annual girls weekend out – nice digs.

And the day wasn’t over yet. We were going to follow Eddy and Linda out to Spiritus for dinner and a nightcap but the dinghy motor wouldn’t start (another project to add to the to do list) so Eddy came back to pick us up. Margaritas, nachos and chile sitting on the flybridge (I want a flybridge) floating securely in a quiet mooring field watching the sunset with wonderful company on a beautiful evening – you should try it sometime, it’s a great way to end an amazing day.

We moved done to the main salon and closed out the evening with a round of Doodle Dice – it’s a hard to explain but surprisingly fun game that doesn’t require a whole lot of brain power (Eddy and Linda have a well stocked inventory of games they like to play and so far we are two for two – we had a blast with both games we’ve played on Spiritus).

Eddy gave us a ride home and we were surprised to find a new neighbor – a 50’+ ketch rigged sailboat parked perpendicular to us on the dock – it’s a full house now at Matanzas Marina. Someone new to meet and share stories with we hope.