Venice (the Florida one, not the Italian one!)

 

I think I neglected to post a crew pic when Maryellen joined…so here it is!

We departed Gulf Harbor Marina early Saturday morning, heading for The Crow’s Nest Marina & Restaurant. In the Caloosahatchee River we encountered some floating debris - a section of someone’s dock!  No issues, crew spotted it and avoidance was easy. In this area we started to see some of the devastation from last year’s hurricanes. 

At the end of the Okeechobee Waterway, the caloosahathee empties into Pine Island Sound (not far from Sanibel Island).  Things got a little rough in there, this short video doesn’t really illustrate how bumpy it became. 

We arrived at the marina in Venice mid-afternoon.  A bit of a shit-show trying to tie up at the fuel dock.  It’s nearly impossible to tie up on port side against any wind or current unless we get aft spring (preferably) or stern line to dockhands.  That didn’t happen, the only line they got was bowline and then I was dead in the water.  My boat backs to starboard, unlike most boats that back to port.  Dockhands assumed that holding the bowline and putting boat in reverse would swing the stern in to the dock but it did the opposite!  They ended up strong arming it to the dock.  This fiasco was followed up by another similar experience going into the slip.  I chose the slip with starboard side tie but again, wind and current would not give way.

Suffice it to say we eventually got settled and I had to give the dockhands a much bigger tip than I normally would!

Biggest negative of the marina (I can’t blame them for wind and current!) is the width of the finger piers…they can’t be wider than 2 ft - terrifying to walk on…quite high above water and nothing to hang on to!

Once settled in after an unimpressive dinner at the crow’s nest we had front row seats from the bridge deck for an impressive holiday boat show.