A fine and pleasant town day: Cannon Island

After the last stressful town day, I was not looking forward to today. We need to stock up for 19 days until the next resupply. At least that means this is the last town stop for a while.

As is often the case, things are worse in your head than in reality. Fran and Pat took a quick $6 taxi to the store and returned with big bags of food. Much faster and easier. Simple.
I even caught up on the blog!

The dock at the motel was too high to load boats so we ferried everything to a sandy beach across the inlet, repeatedly putting a little into the cockpit of an empty boat that I then towed to the other side and emptied. Everything worked smoothly and we then all packed the boats on the beach.

But as we checked the route for our short 5 mile trip to the next campsite we discovered an error in the itinerary.  That 5 should be more like 15. Oops!

Fortunately there is an easy alternative and no one stresses out over the change. We head back north two miles to a primitive campsite on Cannon Island, and just slip the itinerary out a day. We still have several more extra days to spend to synchronize with our ride at Key West.

Cannon Island turns out to be wonderful. We get a couple of hours of light and enjoy it fully.  I swim in the ocean, and Roger takes a walk with his camera.

Another day in paradise.

We are still trying to finalize logistics in the Keys. There are very few campgrounds and it is very difficult to get a campsite this time of year. We have not made reservations since our dates are not firm. We will need some luck.

The first luck comes through. Captain Steve will let us stay at the BSA Sea Base. We can paddle directly across Florida Bay from the Everglades. That makes the logistics of resupply easier and lets us explore areas like Lignumvitae. Most excellent!

I have joined CouchSurfing.com to see if we can find any hosts in the Keys. A hiking friend, GT, used that quite successfully on her paddle down the Mississippi. Wish me luck.