April 9th Sun- - Goodland FL to Everglade City FL

Pic:
Brittany and a baracuda

The VICTORIA and a coconut tree

Barron River

Honeymooners

Brittany and Dad getting tired of taking pics- :)

Goodland fishing fleet

Gary was up first looking at the weather. He's bringing Eddie to shore for a potty break and to mail the boat insurance that I neglected to mail in Palmetto. My fault. Hopefully we'll still get the discount. If you pay it by a certain date they take 100 bucks off. Anyway, its mailed and out of my mind clutter.

Goodland FL although mentioned in Skipper Bob, no longer has a store, and is really not a cruisers stop. However we found the people to be friendly (there are 300 of em) and its a low key casual place. No obvious condos etc. We liked it, even though we couldn't really provision. The store is 5 miles away. I contacted Skipper Bob and he's gonna use the info to update next years edition.

Brittany was helping her Dad hose off the anchor as he pulls it up, when she sees movement in the water right in front of her! Is it a fish? nooo, a dolphin perhaps? nooooo there are 3 Manta Rays swimming together at the surface. Very cool. It also answers our question about the mystery fish. We've been seeing what we thought was a fish. It looked like a double dorsal finned creature. We had no idea what it was. Turns out to be Manta Rays. Excellent way to start the day.

After motoring for about 4 hours we get to our anchorage destination. No good. Current is rippin and so is the wind. We decide to keep going. Gary calls ahead to a marina and secures a slip. We turn out of the gulf into a beautiful place, even though many of the structures on Barren river are pretty ramshackle. We proceed past the Rod and Gun club which is an antique old house that is now a restaurant. There is a yard facing the river with the ever present crab grass that Eddie refuses to walk on. There is also a concrete type side walk and a kind of bulhead that a couple of small boats are tied up to. After about 10 minutes of motoring we start to pass air boat tour places etc and ahead is a metal railroadbridge that crosses over the water. Picture this....Gary and Brittany are up top and I'm down below where I can't see whats going on and I can't hear anything either. As we get closer to the bridge we all realize that the boat isn't going to fit under the railroad bridge. To the left of us was an airboat filled with tourists watching the events unfold. To the right of us are assorted crab pots and fishing boats. Keep in mind the current is pushing us along at a good clip toward the bridge. Gary makes a sharp turn toward the tourists and hits reverse, with the bow about 15 feet from their shocked faces. He slams the boat in gear all while the current is swinging the stern around. Brittany makes eye contact with the driver of the air boat and shrugs her shoulders like "sorry bud there's nothing we can do!" It finally clicks in the drivers head and he high tails it out of our way, with all the tourists hanging on for dear life. Gary pulls us out of that close call and we head back up the river. Gary calls the "marina" for confirmation on where it is. Come to find out its in front of the Rod and Gun club.

This next episode happens in a matter of minutes: We pull up in front of the Rod and Gun Club and Gary points the bow toward the bulkhead and starts giving us instructions as to what line goes first etc. Brittany is standing about midship with the spring line in her hand and she then jumps off the boat. She took the spring line and wrapped it around the pole once thinking that she could hold it. She underestimated the wind and the current which was rippin. We all did. The bow then blew away from the dock and all Brittany had in her hand was the the end of the rope. First Gary was yelling, "Get a wrap on it!" then, "Let it go, Let it go"then "Can you get it?" Brittany's yelling ,"I can get it, I can get it" all the while she is pulling so hard that she's almost sitting on the ground trying to use all her weight to help. Finally she lets go of the rope and the stern is still attached by me. I scramble to untie the stern. The boat is now stern to the dock. Gary got the boat under control out in the middle of the river with Brittany and I waiting on shore to see what to do next. The loose spring line is dangling in the water and we all thought that it was gonna get stuck in the prop, but it didn't. The other challenge is all the hurricane damage down here. I'm bringing that up because when we tried to tie the boat off at a cleat it was blocked with like pvc pipe and hoses.. etc. On the second attempt we got the boat tied off but it wasn't without incident. At one point Gary pointed out that we were ALL standing on the dock with a rope in our hand and no one was on the boat except Eddie and Misty. We had no room for error and it went fine. We went inside to pay for the night and I reminded Gary to put his sandals on. He said he was fine. We got up to the door and the sign said "NO shirt No SHOES No SERVICE". Brittany and I went in and started filling out paperwork and checking out the gorgeous interier of this historic building. Gary went back to get his sandals. hehehe

The following is an excerpt from the Rod & Gun Lodge pamphlet:

The Rod & Gun Lodge is your western gateway to the Everglades National Park

Historical Everglades City dates back over 1,000 years. The Rod & Gun Club is built on the original structure of the first permanent white settler who founded Everglades City in 1864. In 1922 Barron G Collier, a banker and railroad man, bought the Rod & Gun Club whick he operated as a private club. He hosted international dignitaries and several United State presidents here.

In 1972, the Bowen family, from Michigan, bought the Club and is still operating it today. Celebrity guests, past and present include Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Hoover and Nixon. John Wayne and Ernest Hemingway visited in 1942. Burl Ives and Gypsy Rose Lee were guests in 1945 whileon location filming "Winds Across the Everglades". In 1983, during filming of "Cannon Ball Run," Kate Jackson, Burt Reynolds and Sally Field visited here. Other guests were Mick Jagger and Jeri Hall and William Kennedy Smith in 1991; as well as David Carradine, Roy Clark, Mel Tillis, Eddie Arnold and Jack Nicklaus. Location filming of "Just Cause" brought Sean Connery and the shooting of Walt DIsney's "Gone Fishing" brought Danny Glover and Joe Pesci. ................And the list goes on....

So if you try to find us on the map, and all you see is green for everglades. Don't let em kid ya.
There are hidden treasures everywhere...............

Keep us in your prayers, your in ours
XXOO
Victoria's Perspective

PS: If we don't call or you can't get through, please be patient. We are getting really remote. Signal is sketchy.