Cape Coral at Hazen Residence

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 223 - November 10, 2017

Baxter and I went back to shore and under the high dock first thing, back on board for toast and coffee, and we were off for Cape Coral! We had left ourselves a fairly short run from Don Pedro Island State Park to Cape Cora, only 36 milesl. We departed Don Pedro Island State Park as gingerly as we had come in!

Screenshot of Don Pedro Island State Park to Cape Coral

There was what seemed like an unusually high volume of boat traffic, or maybe it was not unusual for this part of the ICW, I don't know. I do know that we got waked by a large number of big boats running very fast and very close. Otherwise, it was an uneventful trip!

We had directions from Cecil Hazen on finding our way into his  house starting with the turn in at R92 on the Caloosahatchee River.  The only thing I didn't know was which house it was, so I entered his address into Google Earth, and then took the lat/lon coordinates. Turned out it was close, but close only counts in horseshoes. I guess the fourth digit in lat/lon is significant, so we were off by one canal! A man was out on his dock, and when we stopped, he said "You are looking for Cecil Hazen, aren't you? Go to the next canal, all the way to the end, and you will see his trawler."  You can see our miscue on our track in Cape Coral!

Track from Caloosahatchee into Hazen residence in Cape Coral

Cape Coral is a very interesting place! Most, but not all,  of the homes are on canals. Cape Coral history began in 1957 when two brothers from Baltimore, Maryland, Leonard and Jack Rosen, flew over the peninsula known as Redfish point, across the Caloosahatchee River near present-day Fort Myers. Cape Coral was founded as Redfish Point. Leonard and Jack Rosen, who were real estate developers, purchased a 103-square-mile  tract known as Redfish Point for $678,000 in that year and, in 1958, began development of the city as a master-planned, pre-planned community. Today, a lot of the homes on the canals are valued at more than a million dollars! Canals were dug, streets paved, houses and businesses built.^[7] Cape Coral was promoted like no other Florida development. The city incorporated in August 1970, and its population continued to grow rapidly until the real estate slowdown that gripped the region beginning in 2008.^[11] In 2016 Forbes Magazine named the City of Cape Coral as # 9 of the 25 "Best Places To Retire In 2016." 

We met Cecil and Danny Hazen on their trawler Desperado in Canada, and we locked through a number of locks together. We were holed up together in Demopolis waiting out Hurricane Nate, and anchored together at the Alabama River cutoff on the way to Mobile. We saw them again and had dinner together in Apalachicola, where they started their big push home with an overnight crossing to Clearwater, but they made a point of saying we could not just cruise by Cape Coral without stopping, so here we are! And grateful!

The Hazens have two boats on their dock on their canal. They are long time sailors, and have owned their Tartan 37 for 22 years but only bought the trawler a month before starting the Loop. They have many trophies and certificates from sailboat racing. Both boats are named Desperado!

Desperado the trawler

Desperado the sailboat!

We called Glade Boatyard to try to make arrangements to put Daydream on the trailer with their TraveLift, on Monday. The lady there said there might be a cancellation, so Danny is going to drive us to River Forest Yacht Basin tomorrow to retrieve our truck and trailer and move it to the Glade Boatyard. We will "cross our wake" at the Ortona Lock Boat Ramp on Sunday, and probably spend the night at the Labelle Town Dock. 

Danny had a wonderful dinner of barbecued short ribs, potato salad, and corn on the cob prepared. A shower, clean clothes, then a soft bed, and we were both out like a light!