Old Bridge Village to Tampa Bay

     Back in October of 2020 former Yahoo group moderator and one of the organizers of  a 2014 Bradenton Rossi Rendezvous Jacquie Frances announced that she and Happy and Mark Jordan were planning a Rendezvous at Caladesi State park in March of 2021.

    At this point the pandemic was still in full swing masks and social distancing the standard behavior. In December 2020 the first person receives a covid 19 vaccine.  At this point, I did not think that I would be attending.  By the end of January with many 65 and older getting vaccines and an old Army buddy of mine coming to visit, I had reserved a slip. Wendy did not want to go, but Phil couldn't wait to get on the water.

    On March 16th Phil and I set out on the first leg of our 300 mile round trip. Our first stop is one of my favorites, Cayo Costa state park. Pelican Bay is located in between Cayo Costa Island and Punta Blanca Island. It has beautiful scenery and is an excellent anchorage.

We had great weather traveling the 40 miles to Cayo Costa. After we set the anchor and launched the dinghy we spent 2 days enjoying the scenery and fishing. Mostly we caught Hard head catfish.

The weather remained great while we stayed.

Sunset the first night on the hook at Cayo Costa.

After two days we weighed anchor and headed north. The water around Venice was an amazing turquoise green. 

Our next stop was a small anchorage between Bird and Lido keys just south of Sarasota. The wind had picked up substantially and we were very happy to be well shielded from it. The sailboat anchored near us had a wind turbine on its mast and it was howling from the wind. We felt nothing down at our level.

The next day as we headed through Sarasota Bay we had 2-4 foot seas, mostly heading right into it so nothing a Rossi can't handle. 

From there we headed out through Anna Maria towards Tampa Bay and the mouth of the Manatee river. We were headed to a recommended anchorage  near the mouth of the Manatee river. As we were heading north the seas became more and more rough. As we were following the markers it soon became apparent that as soon as I turned east that I would have 4-6 foot beam seas trying to get to the anchorage. Following a couple of larger boats I made the turn and almost immediately turned around. The huge following seas weren't much less scary than the beam seas. We were happy when we pulled into Bradenton Beach Marina. We topped off the tanks and got a slip for the night. We went to Anna Maria Oyster house for a tasty dinner.  The following day Smitten caught up with us, so we decided to do the Tampa Bay crossing together.  The 20th was a much more dreary looking day and the wind was again from the north. The seas were down to 3-5 and the breakers much more visible. Since we were essentially cruising directly into the chop we thought we should be fine.

By the time we were starting to get into more protected waters at the North end of the Sunshine Skyway bridge, I heard some banging on the roof. The next thing I know Phil yells the dinghy is loose. So now I am trying to pilot a boat through chop with 160 pounds of dinghy and motor swinging around. I let Sid on Smitten know and we worked our way out of the channel.  I climbed up on the roof and tried to wrestle the dingy back on top. Sid was motoring in a circle around me, as I was getting blown back into the channel and he was trying to slow down boats that were coming around the corner under the bridge. I eventually got it back in place and lashed to the rails. I learned an important lesson, never trust hooks on the rails, they can pop off. After all the excitement, we continued on our way to Caladesi.

 

Projects during the Pandemic

     After returning from Stuart I started a list of things that needed to be upgraded, it was a long list!

1. Solar Panels



2 x 400 Watt Panels



2.  Windlass 

Lewmar 700

    3. Table storage

Stole the idea from another users screen storage.
Used old door slide material.

  4. NMEA 2000 Transducer

Removed old head thru-hull and replaced 
with temp and depth transducer

   5.Lithium capable 40 amp charger

Replaced the defective original guest 15 amp
with Sterling Procharge 40 amp

   6. Remove analog instruments

Cleaned up my dash, removed instruments and flush mounted my GPSMap 5212. I added NMEA 2000 cables from both motors and can access Fuel flow, RPM, speed, engine hours, temperature etc. I also have a Yacht Devices NMEA 2000 to Ethernet gateway connected to a wireless router and am able to view this information on a tablet or laptop as well.

    7.Reconfigured V-Berth Mattress

 Removed the memory foam from our 10" mattress. Cut new plywood backing and reupholstered. Wendy usually sleeps down here. 

Made the port side larger, so that if I end up being the one sleeping down there I can leave out the center section and still have enough width to sleep comfortably. 

   8.Dinghy cover.

Got a large piece of Sunbrella as wrapping material 
when I ordered my helm chair from Great Lakes Skipper.
Perfect size.

  9.Generator mount

Had some aluminum channel that I salvage from our
last marina, Used some more old door slide material 
to fit the genset feet into.

  10. Relocate dinghy crane.

I was gifted a cockpit surround and decided the only way I could make it work, was to cut the crane upright at the gunnel and then mount it fore of the cockpit. It worked out great and I was able to modify the surround to fit the cockpit quite well.

All in all 2020 was a busy year for upgrades, wonder what 2021 will hold.

Stuart and the end of the world as we know it.

     On March 12 a group of 4 cruising boats left Old Bridge Village in North Fort Myers headed for Stuart. Our first stop on our leisurely cruise is the WP Franklin Locks and Campground, a very nice peaceful spot with 8 slips with electricity and water about 12 miles upstream from our village. The next day Donald Trump declares Covid 19 a National emergency and quickly life started changing.  

    After spending a relaxing evening at the Campground, we headed east for our next stop Moore Haven. On the way we passed through Labelle which has free city docks and on through Ortona Locks.  My bow got out from the wall a bit in the lock, I had to hang on with all my might to keep it from swinging around.

    To use the city docks at Moore Haven you just tie up and walk across the street to City Hall and pay $1.00 a foot. There is a park along the docks and a building with restrooms and showers across the street. The docks are old and very high. It was a bit of a challenge to get out of Cloud Nine and up onto the dock. The following morning we went through Moore Haven Locks and on to Clewiston and then across Lake Okeechobee to Port Mayaca. We had a wonderful crossing.

 

    We spent that night at Port Mayaca with the smaller boats rafted to the Camanos and the     Camanos tied off on the dolphins. The next day we headed on to St.Lucie Locks and enjoyed an uneventful passage. Before long we were looking for available mooring balls at Sunset Bay Marina.It would end up being home for a bit longer than expected.

    By the time we got here I was having battery problems. My friend in the Rinker was having issues with one of his engines. We got an uber into town and had the driver take us to several places and wait on us. He was great and got a good tip.

I purchased 3 new lead acid batteries. It was a lot of fun hauling them back to the boat on the dinghy. After much troubleshooting, I determined that my problem was actually my charger. One of my cruising buddies had a portable charger that I used to try to top the batteries off one by one.

This was a constant struggle the entire time we stayed there.

We would dinghy to the Marina every evening for happy hour with our friends. One evening we got incredibly lucky and the Marina was having an end of season dinner, it was a wonderful buffet. The next day as Wendy was stepping out of the dinghy, there was a see-saw effect and the front of the dinghy launched her flat onto the concrete dock.

    The fall had apparently cracked a couple of Wendy's Ribs. Needless to say she was ready to go home and almost called her brother to pick her up and drive her home.  We had a few days of less than desirable crossing windows for heading back, so we waited. We would take the Marina bicycles to Publics a mile or two up the road to buy supplies. That was a surreal experience, people were wiping down all the carts, the shelves were sparsely stocked and some people were wearing masks. We tried to social distance with all except our little group.  Fellow Rossi owner Bill Webster and his wife Molly were going meet us in Stuart after coming back from the Bahamas, but their next marina had stopped  allowing any boats that were not all ready in the marina to come in for anything but fuel. They went on to work their way up the coast. 

  10 days after we had started our trip, the wind was again perfect for a crossing.  On the 23rd we headed back to Port Mayaca.

Tied up again to the dolphins. This time we had an Alligator circling the boats. We also got to watch a couple of  sailboats heeling to get under a railroad bridge. That was quite entertaining, I am happy that I don't have to deal with that 

The next day we passed through the open lock and crossed Lake Okeechobee and on to Moore Haven for another night at the city docks. This time we had to call City Hall and give them a credit card. Between the 

lake and Moore Haven we met another cruising couple who were working their way back to Ft.Myers from the Keys. They had been booted from their marina in the Keys and were heading home. Luckily we all had fueled up in Stuart or Clewiston and didn't have to worry about stopping at any Marinas on our way home.

Lake O was smooth as glass for our crossing back and worth the wait, as it can get pretty ugly pretty quick. After another night in Moore Haven, we continued the rest of the way home to Old Bridge Village. When we got there, the clubhouse and pools were closed and signs were posted everywhere about social distancing. Hopefully this pandemic doesn't last very long 😞 Amazing how much can change in such a short time.

Burnt Store 2020 Rendezvous

     After becoming a moderator for the Yahoo\Groups.IO group and moving to South West Florida a few people in the forum expressed interest in a Florida rendezvous. Knowing that there are numerous Rossi's in the area in the winter, I suggested that we have one down here somewhere. 

I volunteered to "get the ball rolling" but advised that I would need help with "local knowledge" since I was new to the area. A couple of members stepped up and soon we had a planning committee in place. We were advised from planners of a previous Florida Rendezvous in Bradenton that this could take up to a year to get organized, we were confident that we could pull it off sooner.

    The first meeting of our committee took place December 17th 2019 at Bert's Bar in Matlacha, a fun little fishing village in between Cape Coral and Pine Island. Our group consisted of Mike Anderson and his wife Catherine, Peter and Claudia Hornby, Myself and wife Wendy and the photographer of this picture Rob Zivcovic. Rob assisted some with ideas and possible rig storage, but most of the planning was carried out by the group in this photo.

    Mike and Catherine at the time were living in Burnt Store and he suggested that the Marina would be a great place to have our rendezvous. He said Ranger Tugs have one there every year. We all agreed and our location was set. Mike became our "inside man" at the Marina.

    Peter and Claudia worked on possible cruising locations for after the rendezvous and on the itinerary for the rendezvous.

    Wendy and I worked on name tags and signage. I worked on getting people from the Facebook and Yahoo\Groups.io group signed up. Burnt Store Marina did not want individuals contacting them for a slip, I worked on getting accurate counts to have Mike take to the Marina office. We set the dates for  February 24th and 25th after some predicted weather issues that would have created problems for several boats coming down from Tampa and above.

Boats started arriving on the 23rd, we arrived on the 24th by means of Matlacha Pass. If you have never heard the expression "skinny water" Matlacha pass from the south is the embodiment of it. The channel is winding and very shallow. We could see the bottom in the channel and the water isn't clear. We would follow other boaters who passed us to make sure we wouldn't touch bottom. 

By the time all was said and done we had 24 boats that attended as well as several people who flew in or drove just to share in the fun. 

After check-in, some boat tours and a group running over to Cayo Costa for a couple of hours, we had a Happy hour at the Pavillion and then Dinner for 60 at Cass Cay restaurant. The staff pulled off a fabulous job. Great food!

The next day we had discussions about various different subjects ranging from AirHead composting toilets to what wind app we you on our phones. 

The Goldmans gave a presentation on the great loop in a Rossi. 

We ended after a potluck\cocktail hour with silly prizes being awarded for furthest trailered etc.

The next day most of the boats headed for home, 5 headed to Cayo Costa, Cloud Nine among them. The winds were coming straight from the south and intensifying. I was unable to get a good anchor set in the crowded anchorage so we continued on back to North Fort Myers.

The waves going home were 3-5 feet, more than I had ever been in before. We were heading straight into them and it was actually fun. It got a little trickier after we turned east to head up the Caloosahatchee. We made it home safely and before dark.

Hopefully there will be another rendezvous soon, this one was a blast. For anyone interested in the groups.io forum, here is the link to join.

https://groups.io/g/rosboroughrf246owners

Groups.IO

 In the summer of 2019 we purchased a house in North Fort Myers Florida. We spent several months working on our Ohio house to get it ready for sale. As a long time member of the Rossi Yahoo group and someone with an IT background I threw my name out there when the moderators asked for volunteers. 

Heading South

Just as we were about ready to drive down to Florida, I got a call from one of the moderators asking me if I would join them, I accepted and  by the time we got to Florida I was assisting in transitioning the Yahoo Group to Groups.IO as Yahoo was phasing out their groups.

Our new house is located in a 55 plus community in North Fort Myers, on the Caloosahatchee river. The village has its own marina which is now Cloud Nine's homeport. My first boat project down here was to replace my disintegrating door slides. I purchased 4 1.5" thick lengths of Starboard from another group member.  I used a table router to mill the slides and followed directions from another Rossi owner on how to do the replacement.

Starboard is relatively easy to work with using regular woodworking tools. My hot tub seems to be my work bench these days 😁

To replace the Port side slides I removed the cooktop and the refrigerator. Half of the screws are behind a plywood bulkhead. The screws were evenly spaced so I measured the approximate distance from one to another  and used 2 different hole saws, one with a pilot bit and another without to make sure I didn't drill into or through the hull.  

I used the old rails to mark the location of the screws and drilled pilot holes. I thought this would be wise as the old rails were all cracked where the screw holes were. It was really nice to not have to worry about losing my doors anymore. 

Between the Facebook group and the Groups.io Forum you meet a lot of people who feel like friends whether you have actually ever met them or not. So when the Websters, who were doing the loop mentioned how bad their rails were, and that they had been in contact with Rosborough USA for new rails, I told Bill to have them shipped to me and we can replace them in our Marina. Bill thanked me for the offer and before long the rails had arrived followed by the Websters.  Bill and I worked like a seasoned pit crew and  had them back in business by the end of the day. My wife Wendy described their rails as held together by duck tape and a prayer 😁  

The next day they were back on their way out to the Gulf , the Everglades and on to the Bahamas.

2018 Upgrades

 After several years of replacing hoses and various other head parts and finally determining that the holding tank was the source of the never ending stench, I pulled everything out. I after lots of comparison reading purchased an AirHead Composting toilet. If it works as advertised, it should end the stench as well as give us much more available time on the hook. Typically we would need to find a pump-out after 5 or so days.

 

After viewing a YouTube video on making a futon for a Van I decided to make one for the boat. So I pulled out the dinette and relocated the house batteries to the bilge. I routed the vent hoses out to the cockpit.

  I also ordered rear sliders from Bomon in Canada. It was lots of fun removing the old windows and creating templates for Bomon. I used Debond Marine Formula to soften the caulk and picks to pull it out. 

When I finally got the new windows I still had to trim the opening some. Better to have to trim vs. fill somehow. The sliders make such a difference when it is hot out. 

I reused the drawers from the dinette so I wouldn't lose any storage space.

I actually gained usable storage by building this lift out drawer. 

Folded out all the way it is the width of a double bed. Folded up it gives you more walking room in the cabin and is more comfortable to sit on then the twin mattress that the previous owner had installed.

The air conditioner was mounted above the helm station and we had to use a dyer vent hose to get cool air down to the v-berth. I found 14" hatches on Great Lakes Skipper. I cut a new hole over the 1st mate's seat and installed the 2 hatches and cut another centrally located 14" hole for the AC unit. The AC now blows air down into the V-berth and we have more ventilation when we aren't running it.