We left early for Little Current we need access to the internet to plan our trip home to see my Mother be Inducted in to the Florida Contractors Hall of Fame in early August. The forecast was for a front to move through the area. This would bring wind and rain. The area needs rain, yesterday on the path to Lake Topez was so dry Charlotte had to get in front of me cause I was making a dust cloud. The Pool is known to be weedy, it took about 20 minutes to get the anchor cleaned up and on the boat.
The Bridge at Little Current only opens on the hour for 15 minutes. I figured we would get there about 9:20 if we cruised at 10 mph, to be sure and make the bridge at 9:00 we would have to use an extra 25 gals of fuel. We decided to make the 10 am bridge. As we got to little current the bridge was closing, I had forgotten that it was open for 15 minutes, we could have speed up just a little and made it. The bridge clearance is 18 feet and we can partially drop the mast and be 17 feet. Well that is a 15 minute process down and 30 up but it would get us to the town dock before the dozen or so boats starting to cue up. The town dock is first come first serve if you have not made a reservation the day before. Well we dropped the mast and got into a slip. Plugged in with water and Power. The rain started a few hours later.
The boat behind us “Minnehaha”, had a GT flag so I walked over and talked to the owner, Jim, his wife is a Tech grad. When Jim’s wife, Frances, came back I asked her “What The Good Word?”, and she enjoyed telling me “TO HELL WITH GEORGIA”. Frances and I were at Tech together for several years but did not know each other. When Frances started Tech there were about 9000 men and 800 women. She said when she got ask to her first football game on The Flats by three differnt guys, she knew it was “Great To Be A Yellow Jacket”. That night we went to dinner with them and two of their friends. A nice dinner and some good tips for cruising The North Channel.
The next day the rain was gone put it was overcast and windy. We decide to just sit it out for another day. I went out on my bike in the morning then to the 9am broadcast of “Cruisers Net on Channel 71. Roy Eaton has been doing a morning broadcast at 9am for several years during the cruising season. It promotes great camaraderie among cruisers. There are countless stories of people letting cruiser know of a problem and a complete stranger coming to their aid. Since we have been here we heard a request for help with a starting battery that was responded too, then the next day someone need an EpiPin. The cruiser that had the battery issue had an extra EpiPin. Play It Forward is what Cruisers Net is all about. Cruisers are encourage to come help take note and decipher radio calls. Roy starts the broadcast with a shout out for any Medical Emergencies, then a short news update, weather forecast, and then asks listeners to call in their locations. This is where the deciphering comes in as over 100 boats called in that morning. Since it was a rainy day the room was full, Roy said two days earlier he had one helper. It was very interesting, Roy really provides a great service.
I did some blogging, now I am only two weeks behind. When the skis cleared we started looking at making the short move to the Benjamin’s. We don’t like getting to popular anchorages late so we tried calling, radioing, and emailing Next To Me to see if they were still there. No answer so we stayed the night. Walk through town and checked out Turners Department Store, a small town store catering to tourists and boaters. We tried another side road stand for fish n chips, this one was pretty good. The fries were actually crispy. Then walked to docks and relaxed after on the boat.
