By Douglas Bernon
For a good attitude, change your latitude this winter. Charter a boat off the stunning southwest Florida coast.
Among the many delights of cruising the shallow waters of Pine Island Sound in southwest Florida is that, even for powerboat beginners, it requires only straightforward eyeball navigation. As Captain Chris, who trained us in the operation of our beefy trawler, said, “Just follow the ICW markers. And remember, ‘Keep red right when returning to Texas.'” What, we wondered, does Texas have to do with it? Then it sunk in. We were on Florida’s Gulf Coast; the terminus of the Gulf ICW is indeed Texas.
Southwest Florida Yachts (SWFY) custom designs itineraries that cater to the tastes and skills of its charterers. For my wife, Bernadette, and me, staffers laid out comfy daily distances that gave us time for swimming and hiking. Before we ever left the company’s dock — actually, before we arrived — they’d made all our marina reservations. They also figured out where we should be on which day to pick up our friends Angie and John, who were joining us for half the charter, and where to drop them off later in the week for a water taxi back to where they’d started.
Once Captain Chris, in a formidable act of faith, deemed us unlikely to sink NautiGator, our pristine Beneteau Swift 44 trawler, which turned out to be a comfortable and easy-to-drive vessel, we scurried to the local grocery store and wildly overstocked on victuals. To look at the trunk of our rental car groaning under the weight of our larder, one would think we were headed out for years with no likelihood of encountering the many restaurants into which we were already booked. John took to referring to our holiday as “float and bloat.”
At Peace With Nature
Pine Island Sound serves up a western sky with few obstructions between you and the horizon. Sunset lingers longer. Or maybe it’s just cocktail hour, because every day we were tied up or anchored by 1600, waiting for bands of color to layer the skies and dazzle us, which most every night they did.
Meandering Boca Grande to Cayo Costa and on to the marina at Cabbage Key, with the wind picking up during the week, we headed next to storied Useppa, a private island accessible only by boat and restricted to members and guests. SWFY’s owner, Barbara Hansen, is a member, so her charterers can dock at the marina and amble the well-signed botanical trail.
A world of hanging moss and orchids, of Thai spirit houses tucked into cascades of bougainvillea, there’s a feel of the Old South here. The restaurant at the Collier Inn has walls of giant mounted tarpon, old photographs of tournaments and members long gone, trophies, white table linens, and red-brocade furniture.
An island skinnier than six football fields at its fattest, and less than a mile long, Useppa serves up a story of the earth itself and a nuanced cultural history of the United States. Useppa was once part of the continental mass, visited by Paleo-Indians at least 10,000 years ago. By 3,000 B.C., when rising seawater had rendered it a ridge of an island, Calusa Indians came from the mainland in spring and summer. They used this land well into the 1700s, when, historian William H. Marquardt says, “they succumbed to slavery, warfare, and disease.”
By the late 1700s, Useppa was a Cuban fishing camp, and Union troops camped here during the American Civil War. Just before World War I, the industrialist Barron Collier bought the island and turned it into an enclave for the wealthy. In an ironic full circle, during the 1960s the CIA used Useppa for training soldiers to invade Cuba. This island has survived rising seas, tectonic shifts, continental reorganization, disease, slavery, avarice, war, and hurricanes. Useppa is not only beautiful; she’s tough and resilient. Layer by layer, this is our country.
Dance Of The Boat Mates
Having John and Angie aboard for several days was a treat. We’ve shared boats before. John and I have been close friends since childhood and tolerate each other’s idiosyncrasies with amusement. We’ve known Angie for decades, too — one of the world’s most naturally gracious people.
These are the kind of folks you want on a boat, where there are long hours uninterrupted by the demands of familiar routine, where you catch up on all the little things. How IS your cousin Elaine? Did your sister sell her house? Whatever happened to old so-and-so? Sprinkled through rambling conversations, these details piece together a richer picture of where each of us is, chats occasionally interrupted by the delight of seeing pods of fat little dolphins, which reminded me of the marshmallows my grandmother kept in a covered bowl near her reading chair.
Somehow, traveling on a boat inspires us to a more thoughtful day in which the unexpected becomes the adventure. There’s something about breaking away and toddling around a new place on a boat that makes it easier every evening to grin and think, “Wow, today was a good day in my life.” On board, boat life encourages a kinder give-and-take.
Learning From The Pros
Probably my favorite dock master was Dane at Useppa — cool, handsome Dane, eating fried fish when I entered his dock office in a tizzy. North winds were gusting to 25, pushing water out of the harbor, making it shallower than ever and pushing our port side hard up against our dock. There was a Hinckley in front of us, a Hunt astern, and our awning had just blown off. Useppa was beginning to look like a great place to spend the rest of our vacation.
“This wind is going to keep up for another three days,” Dane said. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fun. We’ll use spring lines and let those big ol’ engines of yours do the work. Then we’ll do some fancy dancin’.”
We set up fenders to protect the bow and a spring line from the bow cleat to the dock piling about 6 feet behind the bow. Then, when the moment was right, we were to release the other docklines and I’d rev the boat forward toward the Hinckley (!) and hold it there using only the starboard engine (!!!). Dane promised the boat would pivot its stern out into the alleyway, where I’d put it in port reverse and the boat would unpark itself.
The wind howled as I climbed up to the upper helm station, took a breath, and got the plan into motion.
“Dane! WAIT!” I called out over the wind. “What’s Plan B?!?!” He stood on the dock smiling, holding the bitter end of the spring wrapped twice around the piling.
“There IS no Plan B!” he screamed back over the wind. “OWN Plan A!”
This cowboy was nothing like calm Captain Chris. I throttled up. Indeed, NautiGator slowly pirouetted into the alleyway. I threw it in reverse, gave her plenty of power, we pulled in the spring, and were free of the beauty queens.
On the dock, Dane pumped his fist, grinning large.
“If you’re looking to charter a larger powerboat, two days spent learning from the Southwest Florida Yachts pros is time well spent, and Pine Island Sound — with its exceptional dock masters — a great place to learn.” — Bernadette Bernon
Douglas Bernon is a Rhode Island psychologist and psychoanalyst. He and Bernadette lived aboard their 39-foot sailboat, Ithaka.
BoatUs.com February 2017