Every year between Christmas and New Years we take a trip on Blue Turtle. During this time, business slows down for both Randy and I and Corey is out of school. It gives us a good length of time to cruise and anchor out somewhere so we can all decompress and destress.

But first, Captiva…

This year, we headed to Cayo Costa but first made an overnight stop to anchor near Tween Waters on Captiva. We made the overnight stop so that Randy’s dad and his wife, April, could drive out to Captiva and visit with us. When they arrived, Corey went to pick them up by dinghy and bring them to Blue Turtle for drinks and to open our Christmas gifts to each other. One of our gifts from Johnny and April included a selfie stick so you will notice that I am actually in a few more photos in this post. After hanging out on the bridge for a while, we all went to shore to go to the beach for a bit before heading to dinner at The Green Flash.

Fun times with friends at Cayo Costa

The next morning, we left Captiva and headed north to Cayo Costa. When we arrived, our friends from Snook Bight, Dave and Claudia, were already there and anchored. With the first couple days of our stay looking to be very calm, we anchored near the park’s docks, rather then going back in the “Hurricane Hole”.  This made it a little easier for Corey to paddle his kayak to shore to go skim boarding. We had Dave, Claudia and Lucy (their Boston Terrier) over for cocktails the first evening.  Friends, Mike and Kathleen, came later in the evening on their motor sailer and anchored nearby.

The next day, we all planned a dinghy trip to the Love Canal. Dave laughs at us for calling it that because he knows of it as the “Tunnel of Love”. I’m not sure where we got the term “Love Canal” or where the different names come from, but we love this spot. Thankfully, we went at high tide and for once, Randy didn’t have to get out of the dinghy to walk us through the shallow spots. The beach and weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed catching up with our friends while Corey skim boarded and the dogs played.

While anchored out at Cayo Costa we had some generator trouble. Randy troubleshooted the issue for 5 hours on the first evening. We never got it started that night so we ran the engine to charge everything up. The next morning, He and Corey worked on it some more and they discovered there was a leak in the manual lift pump. The leak was allowing air in the fuel lines which had to be bled out before the generator would start. Thankfully, we figured out the issue and were able to use the generator for the rest of the trip. In order to keep the leak from letting additional air in the lines, Randy had to turn the fuel lines off and on before each time we ran the generator. It was a pain, but kept us from having to cut our trip short.

On Thursday, our third day at Cayo Costa, we moved Blue Turtle back into the hurricane hole in anticipation of a cold front. The wind had picked up some and was planning to increase over the next night into Friday. After that, the three of us went to shore to go on a long hike. The boys wanted to hike one of the trails that led to a pass on the other side of island. We went about 4.5 – 5 miles to get there and back and our legs were tired. Later that evening, we met Dave and Claudia and Mike and Kathleen at the side beach for happy hour and enjoyed the setting sun.

The cold front brought nice waves with it and on Friday, Randy and Corey took their boards and set off for a day of surfing. It was cold (upper 50’s / lower 60’s) and windy that day so I stayed on board with Sophie truing to stay warm. When they returned later that day, both boys were frozen but happy with the great waves they surfed.

Celebrating New Years on Fort Myers Beach

On Saturday we left Cayo Costa and headed south back to Fort Myers Beach to celebrate the New Year. We anchored near the Matanzas Bridge and dinhy’ed to shore for dinner. After dinner we headed back to the boat since their were several hours until the fireworks. We had enough time to watch a movie before the boys dinghy’ed back to shore to watch the fireworks. I stayed on Blue Turtle, comfy in my PJs, and watched the fireworks from the bay. What a great trip to end 2016 and ring in the new year!