Moving time

Sometimes winter time is when we find a place and settle in for a month or two but this year, (so far), has been move, move, move. As in, move down the coast to Fl, move down Fl to the Keys, move thru the Keys, move up the west coast, etc. It’s nice to see new places and meet old friends but it does get old to only see these places as you slowly sail by. After a month of travel we’ve finally reached our destination here in Punta Gorda (which is about 50 miles south of Tampa) and will be here for the next month.

About 1200 miles

Traveling in Fl (by water) does have one large challenge, Crab Pots! The waters around Fl’s southern end have delicious “stone crabs” in them. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_stone_crab ]



Before



After!

 The stone crab has LARGE claws. If you can catch them you can snap off a large claw and the crab will grow a new one back in a few years. So, the fisherman place 10’s of thousands of traps in the waters around here and each trap is marked by a float.

It was a foggy morning and this would appear.

This one is nice and bright, most are dark and hard to see.

Notice the strong current?

At times it’s hard to imagine any crabs surviving the vast fields of traps that litter the oceans around here. It also makes it difficult to travel by boat for it’s easy to snag one of these floating lines on your prop. In the worst case scenario, if you do wrap a line around your prop shaft then your engine suddenly stops dead and the sudden stop can rip your motor mounts apart! Not a good start to a day. So when you’re motoring you have to constantly be swerving around these hazards.

So, other than warm weather, friends along the way and the boredom of sailing we have had moments of crab pot terror every day. It’s been a long month and we sure are glad to be at a stopping point for awhile.