Friday, November 14 to Monday, November 17.

These past few days have taken us through Rookery Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands, a gradual change from the wilderness of Everglades National Park towards the more developed coastline of Southwest Florida. 

On Friday we took a zero day with my long-time friend, Deryck.  It was a great reunion as we hadn’t seen each other in over three years.  He has family in Chockoloskee and we were welcomed to stay and spend time there.  It was awesome to be able to clean the weeks worth of salt from the everglades off!  Thanks deryck for coming out, meeting us, and providing a place to relax and ‘recoop’!

The next few days were spent trying to stay out of the wind and cold that was heading our way.  We wound our way along the outskirts of the Ten Thousand Islands, dodging shallow oyster bars and startling sharks. 

Tide pulled us into the Big Marco River as we tried to avoid the rising seas of the exposed gulf.  We again took the inland route towards Naples after seeing the foaming whitewater at the inlet to the Marco River. 

When we reached Naples we attempted to head into the ocean, but after evaluating the risks and the ever lowering sun in the western sky, we headed inland a few miles to wait it out.

I will forget the happenings of the day that is gone, whether they were good or bad, and greet the new sun with confidence that this will be the best day of my life. — Og Mandino