Friday, August 26, 2016: Today we took a ride, destination, Salty Sam’s Marina at Fort Myers Beach. This trip was under the guise of a visit to see a sailboat that offered bareboat sailboat charters. For those of you that are not familiar with what a bareboat charter is I will explain: For a bareboat charter, you hire or rent the boat only. No crew or provisions. So the person chartering the boat is responsible to crew and supply (food, drinks, etc.) the boat. You need to prove you are capable in handling the boat, for example you will likely need to go out with the person / company renting the boat out for a quick lesson on the boat and to give them a chance to see if you can in fact handle the boat in the harbor, docking and at sea.

Well we found the Marina without too much trouble, however, once there I found out that Tod did not have the name of the Captain or the name of the ship we were there to see! We did walk around the marina and talk to some of the dock hands and the marina store, but, no luck with tracking down the Captain or boat we came to see….

I think it was just an acceptable excuse to get me to take the ride to Fort Myers Beach so that Tod could see what we apparently really came to see, Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grill! There are 3 “Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille” locations. One on Sanibel Island, one on Captiva Island and the one we were at, Fort Myers Beach. As with most of the waterfront dining locations in Florida, you can arrive by land or sea. There is plenty of parking for cars, boats or sea planes.

The main thing about the Doc Ford restaurants is that they are owned by Randy Wayne White and Doc Ford is the main character of White’s more recent novels. So that part was cool, they had books there for sale, some of the really older ones and the newer ones. Tod has several of his fiction books and was in the middle of one. I had just finished “Key West Connection” which is the first of the Dusky MacMorgan books, (published in 81) written well before the Doc Ford series began. At the Rum Bar, we had a late lunch, bought two of his newest Doc Ford books and headed back to Port Charlotte.

I am looking forward to starting a new book! If you are wondering I guess I would compare his fiction writing to Clive Cussler or maybe James Patterson. (Interesting, easy to read action books.)

When we got back we made a stop in Punta Gorda to look at a 32’ sailboat. Arrgggg! We are still working on the Columbia! It is just too premature to buy a boat in Florida for many reasons that I will not even bother going into, but still, we went to look at it and Tod strongly considered buying it (because it was such a good deal). The name of the boat was Wind Dependent, very appropriate for a sailboat. It needed work, as most boats do, but it wasn’t too bad considering it had sat unused for over a year.

Saturday, I think mostly we went shopping searching for shelving or a dresser for the master bedroom and the guest bedroom. So nothing that interesting to write about and even less interesting to read about. Next post, I will tell you all about Gasparilla Island and show you some photos of the amazingly awesome beaches.