Sunsets

Sunsets. We get some nice ones here in Southwest Florida.

Yesterday Carolyn and Cody and I went out into the Gulf of Mexico for a first-ever sunset cruise on Rambler II. Carolyn and I tried to do the same thing Saturday but the conditions in the Gulf were not conducive to a comfortable sunset cruise.

The conditions in the Gulf on Monday were much better. We dropped an anchor in shallow water, knowing that the tide was coming while we were on the beach. We had some cocktails and waited for sunset.

We took Mabel The Rescue too, who has proven to be a first rate Boat Dog and adequate crew member.

So, here is what we experienced yesterday evening.

John P. Needham

November 21, 2023

Naples, FL

Rambler II

When I was growing up in Chicago, my ol' man had a gorgeous 28 foot Pearson sloop in Lake Michigan. It was named Rambler. The name came from the Loyola Academy High School Ramblers, where one of my brothers played football and ran track, and where me and another brother ran cross country and track.

He had that boat for only a few years. I loved sailing it, learning about sailing, learning nautical terms, learning nautical knots, things like that.

When we moved to Naples, FL Carolyn and I thought about getting a boat. I even casually shopped online for local sailboats. Found a few. But I knew that getting a sail boat probably wasn't the best idea. Taking a sailboat even on just a day sail is a large undertaking. Especially here in Naples, with bridges, shallow water, and crazy winds.

Besides, “sailing” isn't really what Carolyn and I like to do on boats. Our preferences lean more towards driving to beaches, sandbars and local waterfront restaurants. None of those would be options in a typical sailboat.

So, we joined Freedom Boat Club instead. That gave us a chance to use power boats: center consoles, bowriders, deck boats, and pontoons.

We became moderately competent novice boaters. We did the things we enjoyed. I took the Coast Guard Safe Boating class up in Fort Meyers, and Carolyn is going to do the same thing.

But Freedom Boat Club was also a little limiting. We had to have the boats back to the dock before sunset, so sunset cruises were out of the question. And in high season here in SW Florida, it was very difficult to get a boat on weekends.

So after a year of boating at Freedom Boat Club, Carolyn and I took the plunge and got a boat of our own.

We christened her Rambler II.

John P. Needham

February 28, 2023

Bayshore Drive

Naples, FL

Hurricane Ian

On September 28th, hurricane Ian blew through the southwest Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ian followed the path of a devastating storm in 2004, hurricane Charlie. There were two big differences between Ian and Charlie:

• Charlie came past Naples heading north and made landfall around Punta Gorda, and the storm last around five hours; in contrast, Ian passed Naples and also made landfall around Punta Gorda, but it lasted for roughly 12 hours. Ian was offshore of Naples from low tide all the way through high tide, which dramatically increased the size of the storm surge.

• Ian also was a monster-sized storm: the entire wind field from Charlie would have fit into just the eye of hurricane Ian. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, the eye of Ian was just off the coast of Naples, but the wind field extended all the way from Key West to Sarasota.

We lost power at 10:15AM Wednesday and it did not come back until overnight on Friday. Of course, all the cell towers in SWFL also were blown down so we had extremely limited cellular service too. We still don't have good drinking water a week later.

Below are some images I took during and after the storm. Just posting them for posterity's sake.

John P. Needham

October 4th, 2022

5:25PM

Naples, FL