Marco (polo lol) and more than Ten Thousands Islands…

4/23/23

We had a quick 2 day stop in beautiful Marco Island. Shaun and I both love it here. The water is just a stunning shade of blue that’s made even more beautiful through our “rosy” colored polarized lenses

Rose Marina is fantastic, in fact its one of the best we’ve ever been too. The staff are incredibly helpful and friendly. The fact the some of them have retired from there says it all when it comes to staff retention. We usually anchor in the basin and go to shore by dinghy unless we are making a longer stop and refueling, pumping out, filling water tanks etc.

This stop was quick and we just needed potty breaks for Cali and a food refill from Publix. I use their app to order whatever I want and it gets delivered right to us in the marina…wine included lol. Now that’s a bonus :-)

On Sunday, the wind and tides were perfect for a quick 2.5 hour sail to our favorite anchorage at Tiger Key. We left at 7.30 and were on the beach by 10.30. It was hard to see how much of it has been destroyed by hurricane Ian. It has been our little haven; from the time that Covid hit (we spent 3 months here with our own private anchorage and private beach without seeing a soul - what covid??) and so it was particularly hard to see it devastated like this. But, true to nature, it will survive and bloom again - it will never be the same and the irony was not lost to me, that neither are we.

We would spend 8 idyllic days here - as always. It's my absolute favorite boating anchorage so far in all the world. I’m so at peace here and feel creative and blessed in the solitude. I love to write, Paint and create while anchored here all alone. When the sun sets and we look out past the bow or the stern, all we can see is forever on the horizon. It does amaze me that in this vast country, filled with a gazillion people, that one can still find solitude. It centers me, clears my mind yet fills my soul. I set the table for dinners and we shared special wines from our trips too.

On our first night we took dinner to the beach to watch the sunset and Cali play in the waves while we ate and shared a bottle of our special red wine. The stars at night are magnificent without all the light pollution here. Beach days blended as we visited various keys/islands and we also had lunch at our usual Rod and Gun Club on a day that wasn’t as sunny as the others

It’s a 30 min dinghy ride into everglades city and an eternity back in time there

We enjoyed sunset cocktails on the beach, on the boat and dinners on the helm up on the helm most nights.

We had one wild and crazy wind storm come through mid week with gale force winds of 60 miles an hour but we were safely tucked away our beautiful bay.

I painted some, Shaun fished some and as always, we wonder where the days go by so fast yet time moves slowly.

We truly are reminded to enjoy the journey when we are here. When we are home we tend to be like ships passing the night but here we get to talk about about anything and everything under the sun, literally lol

I really am missing our little Mr Pete’s and feel it. This is the first time we’ve ever gone out on our boat without him since we started living on board. I know that he is frolicking up in heaven though…with all four of his little legs too now. I had a dream and I saw him swimming happily like he used to before he lost his leg.

Today we are sailing back to Marco Island for 2 nights before heading up the coast to Fort Myers