Since my last update there has been a lot of excitement and very interesting sights to see. Buzz and I went into Everglades City. The picture above is on the river, in Everglades City. It is an interesting building.

This is a little restaurant on the river that is very unique.

This is a typical crab boat. Quite a bit different than what we have in the Neuse River. These guys crab for stone crabs, I think. They drop the pots off and leave them for a period of time and then pick them up and bring the entire craab pot back to the fish house and unload the pots and the crab house removes the stone crabs. You can see the full pots loaded on the boat. It is waiting to be unloaded.

Sorry for the double pictures. The top half is crab pots loaded on a boat ready to be carried into the Gulf. Notice the opening that the crabs enter the pot.

In Everglade City there were several thatch roofed buildings. Quite unique.

This is the Everglade City Rod and Gun Club. It is an old home that was converted to a hotel, marina in the 20's. It is a beautiful place. The "Pelican" is tied up along the bulkhead. What a lovely spot.

This is an old gas pump that is along the bulkhead. Very rare to find one of these today.

Duplicate picture.

Inside shot of the entrance to the Rod and Gun club .

Another Pelican just resting on a piling.

The bar inside the Rod and Gun Club.

Lounge area. Notice the aligator skin

This is a shot of the entrance from the street side.

This old truck is in the front of the Rod and Gun Club. The building behind the truck is the local bank.

Yours truly standing in front of the sign that people hang fish they catch. I did not have anything to show, just me. However I did have a snook break a lure off while fishing at night.

I'll do another blog with pictures of the Everglades taken while I took the dinghy for a trip into the glades.

This is one of the most intersting places I've visited. It is old Florida.

We left Everglade City Thursday morning when there was enough light to see how to get away from the dock. Shortly after leaving the dock, I took a marker on the wrong side and promptly ran agound. For the first time in my life I had to wait until the tide went totally down. The boat listed over 15 to 20 degrees and when the tide came back in we were finally able to float the boat again. We were in a place that tour boats, air boats and large ferries taking people to Key West came by frequently and everyone had an opportunity to see what NOT to do when departing Everglades City. I just waived and waited for the water to come up high enough to get underway again.

We did not enter the Gulf, to make the 80 mile trip to Key West until around 2:00. Murhpy's Law worked. About 2/3 of the way to Key West the wind picked up to around 20 knots and the seas were on our beam. I had to change directions and we spent the night, from 1:00 until dawn inside Harbor Key Bank. The anchor would not hold and we had to reset it 3 or 4 times. Finally it had it set enough that we were drifting only slightly and I was able to get some sleep. It was raining, windy and the weather was not cooperating at all.

We got underway to Key West around 8:00 this morning and traveled the 27 miles south back to Key West arriving around 2:00 with strong winds and seas. Right now I've seen enough of the Gulf. I'm ready for calm seas and light winds.

The following blog will go back to Everglade City. I'll show Key West in my next blog after this one, which will be in a couple of days as we are staying here until Sunday or Monday, when the weather gets better to travel north along the inside passage toward Miami. Alex Badger will be joining us Saturday afternoon for the trip through the keys north. That's going to be fun if the weather will cooperate.