Port-A-Gee

Southwest Florida: Hurricane season shut us down in the fall, so we ended at the Wharf in Orange Beach, AL in mid-November. We returned south the 1st week of February to attend the annual Ranger Tug / Cutwater Rendezvous at Burnt Store Marina, Punta Gorda, FL, so this left the panhandle piece of our Loop unfinished.  This includes the much-talked-about Gulf Crossing from Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs.  We are working out the logistics to complete this piece, as we intend to navigate every nautical mile of the Loop.  For now we will continue down the southwest coast of Florida. Tues, Feb 9 - Punta Gorda to Sanibel : 26 miles.  We pulled the anchor at Pelican Bay, and began motoring across Charlotte Harbor to Sanibel Island Marina for 2 nights.  When we arrived at Sanibel, we received a text from former Ranger Tug owners, Steve and Laurie Hafener, who Winter on Sanibel - they graciously made their bicycles available to us while we continued to quarantine.  We ...

After spending August - December on the boat in 2020, we were glad to be on solid ground again.  But that didn't last long!  By the end of January we were excited to go back to Florida and resume our adventure.       Proofreading this post revealed how much Covid has interfered with our trip.  We will all be glad            when we can resume normal activities again. Burnt Store Full Moon Fri, Jan 29 -  We splashed Port-A-Gee at Burnt Store Marina, Punta Gorda in preparation for annual Southwest Florida Ranger Tug / Cutwater Rendezvous.  This will be the 4th year that we've attended, but this year was special because we finally attended on board the boat!!  No back and forth to the Airbnb this year. Feb 5 - 7 - Rendezvous:  Of course, due to Covid-19, attendance was much lower than past years. Per usual, Mike and Jess Rizzo put together a lovely well organized 3-day event.  We were glad to se...

Work of Art 10/25/20 - We arrived at the Wharf, Orange Beach, AL, late afternoon and tied up to N196 which turned out to be our home for a while.  The Wharf is a 4-star marina that offers clean, spacious amenities, shopping center, restaurants, and miles of improved space for exercise.  It is also an in-the-water boat show with $10,000,000 ++ boats, each one meticulously maintained by captains.  Mostly Viking Sport Fish. Seeker & Port-a-Gee Crews 10/27/20 - We've been watching the 27th named storm of 2020 for for about a week, and it looks like Zeta will make US landfall overnight tomorrow (10/28).  Thus, our frequent buddy boat, Seeker, reevaluated their Bay St. Louis destination, and made their way to The Wharf to ride out the storm under the protection of The Wharf, which fared well through Hurricane Sally in September 2020 - Fingers Crossed!  We rode out Zeta in the Marina, and came away unscathed.  We get to check off Hurricane on the Bingo card! U...

10/19/20 - We took a day off and spent the day at Kingfisher Marina, Demopolis, AL .  Kingfisher is one of the nicest marinas we've visited. The pool was open, but we didn't take advantage of it.  We did, however, appreciate the big, clean laundry and shower facilities.  They even had free cable - but who has time to watch TV? I'm sure we would have appreciated it had we stayed longer. Cap gave Port-A-Gee a much-needed bath.  The chalk cliffs that we admired, attached their mineral deposits to the hull turning it white.  First Mate went for a run on gravel, but flat.  This is always a great way to check out the area. We were reunited with Seeker as they arrived late morning, and then used the courtesy car to get provisions - including some items for us.  We're saving our pints of Cherry Garcia for an evening on anchor. The crews of Port-A-Gee and Seeker borrowed the courtesy car to go into town for dinner.  We were pleasantly surprised to find Th...