Well rested after two nights at Marci Island Marina we awoke and had a plan for the day to move on down the coast to Everglades City where we are having the new water pumps shipped to the Rod and Gun Club.
While Renee worked on finishing up her homework and doing a couple loads of laundry Erik rode into town for a few more errands since we knew there would be very little available in the everglades. Early this morning while ripping off the water holding tanks our “as seen on TV” expanding garden hose that works perfect for the boat suddenly reached the end of its life and burst. A replacement for it was found at the local ACE Hardware. He also picked up a couple of new belts for the engines to replace the old when the new pumps arrive.
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| The new owners of this older Carver came over and talked to us this morning. They had just bought this boat in the Keys and are on their way bringing it home all the way to the Beaver River which is up in Pittsburgh off of the Ohio River. They have quite a Trek ahead of them! |
We shoved off from the dock at 10:15 am. It was already a hot morning. We doused ourselves in sunblock as we usually do taking a little extra care this morning because we both appear to have gotten more than our share of sun the past couple of days. Today’s trip was a planned to be a fairly short (27 mile) journey back out into the Gulf where we would hug the shoreline within 3/4 a mile or so down and into the Everglades. It was an easy cruise with no issues. We arrived at the Rod and Gun Club at 2:15 pm.
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| Docked on the wall at The Rod and Gun Club. Notice the gas can to fill the generator since the electric here is not good and has stray currents. |
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| Old truck under the awning at the entrance |
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| Very ornate front door |
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| I don't think this is where we will be filling up the boat at |
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| Pic of the main building from a distance |
We were looking forward to a dip in the pool to cool off. We went up to register and looked around the historic building for a few moments. It is a very cool, beautiful wood, circa 1864 building. More pictures to come of the interior tomorrow as we didn’t get the chance to take many inside shots today. We dipped our toes in the pool which was very nice and actually of a somewhat cool temperature 😊 before we headed back down to the boat to get plugged in and get the A/C running. Did we mention that this place is old? I guess that the electrical is as well 🤨 Immediately after plugging into shore power our galvanic isolator unit alarmed indicating that there was a significant issue with the power (likely a short on the ground). We moved the boat and tried several other power pedestals but all with the same results. Ugh...it was WAY to hot and muggy to not have A/C particularly since we planned to be here for at least 3 nights. After talking with a guy working on some other stuff around the club it was determined that he had no knowledge or ability to remedy anything. The even lore unfortunate thing was that this is the ONLY place in the Everglades open for transient dockage. The other marina which is actually mainly an RV resort is now. Loses for the season (we had tried weeks ago to get a boat slip there). We decided to motor on through the channels down to that marina/RV park anyhow on the notion that possibly we could locate someone who would allow us to go ahead and use a slip with power given the circumstance. No luck....the site manager was there and very friendly. He really wanted to allow us to stay but the owners were adamant that it could not happen. Back we went to the Rod and Gun Club. Fortunately, last year we had installed the new A/C unit with a start capacitor that does allow us to run it with our portable generator in a pinch. This is what we decided to do. It appears that Uncle Dicks two 5 gallon gas cans that he brought to our boat while stored at The Glades near their house will come in REALLY handy! Thanks Uncle Dick. We walked about 3 blocks to a gas station where we purchased 8 additional gallons of fuel (the generator already had 1.5 gallons in it....it has a small tank). With the generator now ready to run the A/C we were now really and hot and sweaty so we suited up and went for a dip in the nice cool pool. Ahhhhhh!
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| Very nice pool at the club with somewhat cool temp of water :-) |
We fired up the generator and AC afterward and oiled off in the boat while preparing dinner on the grill. The evening was rounded out with Renee finishing and submitting her homework on very sketchy internet service while Erik tried his hand at fishing again. The fishing only lasted for a short time before the rain came pouring down. He did manage to catch one boring catfish....could’ve gotten that in the muddy Muskingum 🤣
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| Not grilling worthy :-( |
I love reading your adventures!
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