currently in: the Gulf of Mexico

Yay, we've escaped Tarpit Harbor, aka the Fort Myers Yacht Basin. Not that we've gone very far; we've put only about 17 nautical miles under our keel and are anchored just outside Matanzas Pass and Fort Myers Beach. We're not actually in a real anchorage, but with the wind out of the north the water is placid close to shore, so we just motored up toward the beach and dropped the hook in 7 feet of water. And then we had drinks, to celebrate making it out of the Okeechobee and only scraping our VHF antenna on the bottom of two of the three 55-foot bridges.

The wind is blowing pretty well, although we're not exactly sure how hard it is as when we turned on the instruments this morning we noticed that the wind-o-meter wasn't reading (and the little cups on the actual instrument at the top of the mast weren't turning), and we have no idea how or when that happened - it worked on the way from Glades - but we weren't about to go up the mast to fix it right then. NOAA weather radio says 15-20 knots out of the northeast; our battery monitor, which has a setting to read our alternative energy, says the wind generator's doing 3 amps.

Tomorrow we should have good sailing to Marco Island, where we may hole up for a layover day if the wind, as NOAA predicts, increases to 20-25 knots. From there it's a long day, farther from the coast and therefore rougher if it's blowing hard, to the Little Shark River in the Everglades. It's one more day to Channel Five between Matecumbe Key and Long Key, where we'll wait for favorable conditions to head east up the keys toward Key Largo, where we'll visit with the Andersons on Summer Wind, pick up our mail, and get our last supplies.