Dolphin Day

As we prepared R&R for departure from Marco Island yesterday, we heard a repeated “slap” sound and saw a dolphin slowly swimming through the marina, slapping its tail on the water surface again and again. It was a beautiful sight and brought smiles to our faces!

Richard, the insightful dockmaster, former charterboat captain, and bold gospel evangelist, handed our lines to Rhonda with the confident statement that we WOULD see each other again.

We left the Marina into the Marco River with light winds.

After turning to port and idling out the Marco River, we gave a blast of the air horns to friends Marilyn, Jean and Jan at La Peninsula, crossed the bar into the Gulf of Mexico (with some trepidation, because we damaged a prop the last time we crossed that bar), and headed south along the beautiful four mile Marco Island Beach.

Our destination was Everglades City, about 40 miles to the South and East.

The inlet from the Gulf past Indian Key, through Chokoloskee Bay, and into the Barron River has some narrow areas with skinny water, so we cruised slowly and anchored inside of Indian Key for lunch, to wait for a rising tide.

But back to dolphins…soon after we set the anchor in a small bay East of Indian Key, a pod of dolphins came to greet us and played near the boat the entire time we were enjoying lunch. There were at least three or four adults with a couple of small calves, frolicking around the bay. We felt blessed to have our cruise begin and end with greetings from these friendly and beautiful creatures.

We retrieved the anchor and idled along the narrow and winding channel, past the historic Rod and Gun Club, back to Everglades Isle Marina, coasting through a few shallows to save the props. Two dockhands met us at the pier to help us tie up.

A good day on our way to Key West!