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