We arrived in Everglades City at the Rod and Gun Club quay, there being no slips as such, and moored about 1340 after splashing our way around Cape Romano. We are happy to find good cell and air card coverage (Verizon). No TV cable service is provided at the pier, and there is only fuzzy over-the-air TV from Miami.
The R&G Club dates back over a hundred years and its interior is all dark, varnished wood and hung with guns and trophies both aquatic and terrestrial.
We "spoke" a north-bound 34-foot trawler with 3.5 ft draft this AM, and they reported failure to get into Everglades City due to grounding. They stated that it was a low tide. We brought our 4.5 foot draft Calypso in here at high tide today (+2.25 feet) and saw really shallow water at marker 17 only, and that was about 2 feet under us. We carefully adjusted the Humminbird depth sounder to read depth under the deepest part of the boat using a lead line before we got into the channel; so our readings were within inches. Where the guide book saw shallow water between markers 27 and 29, we saw minimum 4 feet under our keel.
We rode our bikes all over town, and there are a ton of smallish eating establishments. The Rod and Gun Club is not on my list due to pricing.
There is one small market store for essentials, and I found a fuse and some butt connectors I wanted at the True Value hardware a quarter mile north from the market.
It is evident from a couple of people I spoke with that this place folds up in the summer. It seems a number of the workers and business owners are seasonal in their presence here.
One business owner pointed out a very fine looking piece of property across a branch of the river complete with many newly planted palms and boat slips. It is a high-end RV camp. Lots go for $600,000.00 and slips for a 32-foot boat would be around 300K. Only class 1 RVs under two years of age are accepted. Maybe some people are not affected by either the economy or good sense.
We will sit out the coming frontal passage here and will sail with the tide about noon on Sunday. We will probably exit this 6-8 mile long channel and poke our nose into Florida Bay to "test the waters" before deciding to mosey on down the road. If conditions are poor, we will reenter the channel and pick up an anchorage about a half mile in. We cannot come back here to the quay because the Sarasota Boat Club has the whole place reserved. However, with the windy predictions, they might be wise to cancel.
