This past holiday season, my daughter Lauren who was with me on our first blogged trip in the spring of '13 at Islamorada in the Florida Keys made it clear that in addition to all the usual holiday stuff she wanted to do an island adventure with Gertie and Bernie before she returned to the nasty weather in Chicago. Rightly so as it turns out. Lauren lives on the shore of Lake Michigan and it has been reported that record low temperatures there this January exceeded even those of the South Pole. We can blame it on Canada or Global Warming, whichever floats your boat. Lauren was thirteen when she and her sister Vanessa accompanied me on her first independent Gunkhole adventure which was a 150 mile round trip to the mouth of Catskill Creek NY on the Hudson River in our Catalina 22 sailboat. We "putt-putted" against the strong north wind and the current all the way there with our 8 hp Johnson outboard. In addition to the spectacular scenery, we remember fondly our evening group reading of RIP VAN WINKLE in the town where he woke up 20 years after he went to sleep.
I chose this relatively easy trip just south of Marco and Kice islands which are among the most northerly of the Ten Thousand Islands, because I wanted her to see something special...the infamous Cape Romano Dome Houses. I have made similar trips 3 or 4 times in the past four years in various craft including an Irwin 28 and with and without company. My son Drew accompanied me on a "Fakawi" trip for Fathers' Day in 2012 during which we towed our Pelican double kayak behind the yet to be named Gheenoe who after a motor makeover eventually became Gertie. This turned out to be a good thing as we ended up towing the good for nothing no-name Gheenoe back to Caxambas by using the kayak as the tow vehicle. We also hitched a ride for a few miles behind a Carolina Skiff and then sailed a bit using a parachute beach blanket for a spinnaker. Since then, I've invested in a BoatUSA membership which is kind of like a AAA for boats and they provide towing services. Generally I find that the water, the mudflats and oyster banks and sandbars and inlets (called "Passes" here) are different every time. They don't call them "shifting sands" for nothing and depending on the wind and the tide, I have used different routes. As a result, even though the destination may be the same, the trip itself is always different. As well the passes in and out to the gulf from the various inland rivers and sounds and bays are here today and gone tomorrow. On a kayak trip to Blind Pass (which divides Kice Island from Cape Romano Island), I was able to explore deep inside the center of Kice where even Gertie couldn't go at low tide. Kice Island is something of a phenomenon. But for a complicated environmental court settlement in 1982, it would have been bridged over from Marco Island and its two miles of beaches would have been shoulder to shoulder condo's as a twin development of its big brother Marco to the north. As it is Kice was never platted for development and 4,000 acres are there to share among the osprey, whales, dolphins, manatees, kayakers, shellers, fishermen, commercial jet ski tours and a few odd ball gunkholers. .
Bernie at Blind Pass in 2012 in the general vicinity of where 25 dead pilot whales were washed ashore in January 2014. Local news story on dead pilot whales