A Swim In Lemon Bay Englewood Florida

Our anchorage in Lemon Bay was wonderful. There were only four boats in the large basin that could hold 50 or more. Paula made us a delicious breakfast of fruit smoothies and bagels with cream cheese. Paula and Tom are trying to use up all their fresh food before they get to Ft. Myers. We'll be doing the same when we get closer to Indiantown.

Dave and Tom watching the sunset aboard
Life's TraVails

Instead of using our pancake spatula again, we wanted to pick up real scrapers to clean the hull. The hardware store is just across the street from the bayside park nearby, but we'd have to kayak ashore to get to it. We released our hold on Life's Travails then made our way closer to land before dropping anchor on our own. We launched our kayaks and paddled ashore. Mooring on the dock is not allowed so we pulled the kayaks from the water and chained them to a post. The launch was very busy. We picked up two scrapers and 3 copper brushes. They are bigger than toothbrushes but small enough to fit in our water intake. While we were in town, we walked to Publix for groceries. It was a good mile each way in hot, humid weather, on sea legs. It was worth it though; we like Publix because you don't need a courtesy card to benefit from their special pricing. Everyone gets the same price and they always have BOGOs.

Spatula next to real scraping utensils

This is not our first visit to Englewood. In the 80's, we cruised aboard our 23 foot Coronado, s/v Keewatin and kept her at Little Gasparilla Island. We rode over to Englewood with our friend Benny often. He'd bring us to the local 'Five & Dime' for the egg special. We have fond memories of this time in our life. Our breakfast spot is long gone. Publix most likely took it's place!

1983, not in Englewood yet by the looks of our layers
but certainly on our way there!

Cruising-Team Rogers in 1983

We kayaked back to Mystic as Life's TraVails was raising their anchor. They motored over to say that Tom had gone into the bay and scraped his prop as well as cleaned out his water intake. They were running on both engines again and headed for Pelican Bay near Caya Costa. We agreed to meet them there after our hull work was complete.

Life's TraVails on the left, Mystic on the right
View from our kayaks on Lemon Bay

Dave, Life's TraVails and Mystic on Lemon Bay

After stowing our groceries, we grab bed our diving masks and bathing suits; dropped into the bay and began our hull cleanup. I wore a life jacket because of the current but Dave went in without one. He needed to dive to the rudder and prop and wouldn't be able to do so wearing floatation. It took us a good hour to unburden Mystic of her barnacle coat. Dave did a great job on the prop and rudder which was definitely the hardest to get to. I scraped the hull as far down as I could reach fighting the buoyancy. In the end we got 75 % of the hull cleaned. The rest will have to wait, but we hope to pick up speed after what we've removed today. We were on our way to Pelican Island, 20 miles away, by 3:00 in the afternoon with hopes of to arriving by 6:30. If the weather holds out, we plan to hike Caya Costa State Park with the Vails tomorrow. It is a rare uninhabited island, known for a fabulous shelling beach. You can only get there by ferry or private boat.

Relaxing aboard Life's TraVails with Tom and Paula
A wonderful Looping memory!