Emptying Out the Camera

First off, I have to send out a heart felt thank you for those of you who have commented on our trip, our pictures and our good fortune.  Your feedback encouraged me to put up a post each night even when we were dog tired and ready to go to bed.  This is Beth as she "patiently" waits for me to finish up a blog for the night...

 Each and every one of you that I have talked to has requested the same thing - MORE pictures!!!  I finally downloaded the pics from the camera (honestly, the silly iPhone 4S takes as good of pictures) so here ya go (with the necessary commentary, of course)...

Each day started with working thru an exhaustive checklist.  This catamaran was massive - so massive that to check the oil in each engine, you had to climb down into the port and starboard compartments.  See?

 Beth is actually standing on the engine there in that one - you can climb down all the way in there and be gone from sight!  Next, we see the main sail and it's halyard on the side.  To raise the main sail, there were two electric winches that were powered by stepping on an electric button.  Really cool! (buttons not shown)

When we first set foot on the boat, we were pretty intimidated by the size of it!  Then, when you see the lines pictured below, you are like "wtf?"  This boat was much more complicated than the 30 foot Endeavor cat we were on previously.  You can see the two electric winch buttons in the pic below - very helpful and necessary when dealing with this size cat with these massive sails and tension.

 You even had to put the traveller on the electric winches as well...

 These were all taken on our 30 mile sail up to Useppa Island.  The shots are all of Captiva or North Captiva Island, I believe.

 Here's a shot of the very open saloon area on the Lagoon 47...

 Shots from Useppa Island.  The first two shots show the other boats that were also anchored there.

 Shots from anchoring off of Boca Grande...

 Dolphin!

Next, I took these while we were on our dinghy ride into Boca Grande...

Once on the ground, we walked around the "downtown" area and it was more than charming.  Awesome little beach town - no gas stations or anything that would be a chain.  Very quaint and awesome...

So that's all the good stuff - here are just a few other shots of interest...

 Here's a shot of our last night that we spent on the bow of the big cat.  While a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand words can't describe how perfect this night was.  The perfect ending to a perfect beginning...