We departed on the last day of our trip from Rhode Island to Florida this morning at 0630 hours... leaving from the Rum Runners docks in Cape Coral, FL.

When I awoke at 0545 hours I noticed the boat was listing slightly to port away from the dock... the list I discovered was not due to water tanks levels being uneven but rather the starboard side of the boat was sitting on the bottom... high tide had been at 0400 hours and in just under two hours we had lost a lot of water... I was not sure if we would get off the docks or not... we dropped the lines and I attempted to roll the bow off the dock and swing the stern away from the dock into deeper water... I said attempt to do this as it took about 20025 minutes to get the boat to swing around and away from the docks into deep enough water that we could maneuver... but it was not very deep... depth sounder would not even register a reading... :( we skimmed along the bottom for about a quarter of a mile out of the canal that leads back to Rum Runners and finally as we turned into the main canal the depth sounder started to work reading instantly 14 feet deep... :)

That behind us we continued out of the canals and channels that led us back to the Okeechobee Waterway channel or the Caloosahatchee River by name and head down the channel towards our final destination Punta Gorda.

The tide was extremely lower than what I ever remembered seeing in the past in this area... large areas that were normally sand bars hidden a foot below the surface of the water were fully exposed land masses rising a foot above the surface. We had to move slowly as even the channel was very shallow... with depth readings of 5, 6 and 7 feet. So we crept along at 5-6 knots... the trip which should of taken 6 hours took us 7-1/2 hours.

We arrived to Fishermen's Village Marina in Punta Gorda, FL at 1400 hours and proceeded to the slip that had been assigned to us a few days earlier... Slip B-13. Arriving at dead low tide even getting into the slip was interesting as we churned mud up with the props but we were floating... unlike earlier this day... LOL

We traveled today for 7-1/2 hours covering 45 nautical miles. This made the trip from Rhode Island to Florida a total of 1362 nautical miles or approximately 1566 statute miles. We did this in actually 18 days as one day we only moved 10 miles... does not count... LOL

The entire trip leaving Florida in April going north to Rhode Island and returning to Florida we traveled 3144 nautical miles or 3616 statute miles.

Now that we are back in Florida I will return to work as captain for TowboatUS Charlotte Harbor and Susan will return to her old job working for National Cremation Society.