Thanksgiving in Fort Myers

Hi all, hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving surrounded by friends and family. Dirk and I spent ours sitting on a mooring ball here in Estero Bay in Fort Myers. Well we actually did find a nice restaurant called the Gulfshore Grill that was serving Thanksgiving dinner. We walked in about 11:30 and they told us they were closed for the rest of the day unless we had a reservation for dinner starting at 12:30. Since we didn't have a reservation we were told we could sit at the bar and they could get us a meal there. We agreed to come back and decided to spend some time walking the beach. When we returned we were still a bit early but as the bar was open we went ahead and grabbed two stools ordered a couple cocktails and gabbed with the bartenders. We were approached a few moments later by a hostess who said that they had set up a table for us if we wanted to be seated in the dining area. Now that was a nice surprise and of course we graciously accepted. We had the option of a Shrimp, salmon, prime rib, rosemary lamb or traditional turkey with all the trimmings. Thanksgiving is all about the turkey for me so we elected for the traditional and have to say we were not disappointed. What a great spread this restaurant put on and well it was nice to be treated so nicely.


Above Dirk and I are enjoying our Turkey meal and below our bartender that we called Sara due to her resemblance to Mrs. Palin.

I think last time I wrote we were in Boca Grande and only spent one evening there as we are anxious to get south. It was a beautiful area with many small islands screaming to be explored, but it would have to be some other time. On Tuesday we pulled anchor and cruised down the ICW putting up the sails to very little winds. Once in Sanibel area we went through the area that some cruisers call the miserable mile. We had no problem but I can see where it could be. When you are cruising down the ICW and you look over and see someone shin deep in water very close to your boat you get a little white knuckled especially when you know that you need at least 5 feet under your boat not to hit bottom. When you look at the charts in many areas it shows a depth of 1 to 2 feet so you dont let your boat stray. It took us about five and a half hours to make the trip and like I said we ended up in a mooring field in Estero Bay. The Matanzas Inn runs the field and at 13 bucks a day its not bad for this area. Pretty empty too as they put us in the back forty as I say. But that's fine, was a bit of a dinghy ride to the dingy dock but they had nice laundry facility's there and it makes for an easy walk to the beaches a couple blocks away. Tomorrow we shall head out bright and early to make the 7 hour sail down to Marco Island where we will spend a day then we are looking at another long sail of 20 hours down to Boca Chica in the Keys. We both are looking forward to getting there as we will spend some time and relax a bit taking time to soak up some sun and fun. We have been moving so much that it will be nice to breath for a while.