Plans Are Coming Together

Day 257  |  Punta Gorda    

A Farmers Market is held at Burnt Store Marina every Friday from 9-1. We arrived fashionably late at 9:15 and were close to first in line. The median age of residents in this community is a bit higher than ours. We were happy to be first in line for fresh Plant City-grown strawberries and blueberries. We picked up a container of each. The fresh-baked bread stand grabbed us by the noses and reeled us in. The rosemary-garlic focaccia smelled amazing there and still does in our galley. (It tastes so good too.) We returned to Crossroads and I was able to finally pick up my book again and read a bit out on Fiberglass Beach. The sun was warm and it was a beautiful day.

Once Chris and Roger (Miss Utah) returned from the Farmers Market we all loaded into the mom-van and drove to the nearest Costco in Fort Myers. We each wanted to pick up a few final provisioning items to load up our freezers as we prepare for the Bahamas and they head to Cuba. We checked all the items off the list, but I also picked up a beach chair. While I initially had ideas of using it on sandy beaches, it worked nicely on Fiberglass Beach as well.

Our afternoon was filled with the ought-to-be-simple task of filling one of our propane tanks. We found a place that would fill it, took it in, and then were told the tank was too old to refill. That set off a long string of events that took us to two West Marines in search of a new tank. We finally found one 45 miles away, all the way back in Fort Myers. We took it back to the original fill station and got two gallons pumped into it.

We spent a quiet evening on board. I portioned out, food-savered, and froze the salmon, chicken, and shrimp we purchased today. We also did some more route planning. We now have confirmed marina reservations in Marathon (Feb. 16-23), which enabled us to make additional reservations at Everglades City (Feb. 12-15). We can now chart out anchorages along the way to fill in between these two destinations. Cayo Costa, Cabbage Key, Sanibel Island, and Marco Island are all rising to the top of the list. Fingers crossed this warm and dry weather pattern holds for a while.