Boating; A Great Day on the Water!
Short Video of Pine Island trip. http://youtu.be/wxwPxqxyLgs
Saturday; Cleveland Jack, I and 'The Reverend' took a boat ride. Just a boat ride. Since Jack is going up to Ohio for the rest of June and all of July, he wanted to use a "Freedom Boat Club" boat one more time. He's been a member there for several years and really likes having 21 boats of different configurations from which to choose.
We started late because Jack was trying to finish July's back flow inspections. Luckily, he got a 21 foot deck boat with a bimini. The afternoon sun can turn a watermelon into a raisin. We brought along some beer and ice and pink lemonade.
I wanted to show them how to get through and how to fish 'long cut' at the end of Pine Island. Snook season will re-open this fall and the cuts are prime Snook spots with their overhangs of Mangrove branches. After leaving Bowditch Point we were able to run up to twenty five mph across San Carlos bay.
Jack wanted to check out 'Picnic Island.' He was the skipper so we rode under the Sanibel causeway and entered the 'miserable mile' behind another boat that cut off the corner. Picnic island had plenty of boats beached or anchored around and some people were cooking on the remote island.
Once in the long and narrow 'mile' the two foot seas became confused three to four footers because of all the wakes from passing boats. We pounded pretty good but the boat was up to it. Our destination was the 'Low Key Tiki' on Monroe Canal but first Jack wanted to try and run 'long cut.'
'Short Cut' and 'Long Cut' were dredged out of the end of Pine Island by the Calusa Indians a thousand years ago. Their canoes had such a difficult time making it around the point that they created shortcuts by hand and with some rudimentary tools. They used the 'spoil' to build large mounds that became summer homes. The cuts remain open because of the ripping tides that run through them.
Jack was hesitant about going the length of the cut but got the general idea. "The deep water isn't necessarily in the middle," I told him but it's a hard concept to understand for boaters raised on lakes. We saw several boats fishing the cut but only one was using live bait.
We went up Monroe Canal as far as the 'Low Key Tiki' but decided against stopping because Rev has a bad back and climbing over the bow onto a seawall didn't appeal to him. (Why they haven't put in finger piers is beyond me. Women hate getting on and off that way.)
It was a great day, a few beers and a boat ride is all most people would ask! Thanks Jack and enjoy Put'n Bay! See video for a feel of the day!
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