Reached my Most Southerly Destination

 After 2 weeks at WP Franklin my time was up but I didn't have reservations at Collier Seminole State Park near Marco Island for two more days so I need to find something to do and places to camp. 

I left on Monday morning to bike on the John Yarbrough Linear Park Trail in Fort Myers which runs along the 10 mile canal.

It was very scenic and ran through mostly wooded areas. It crosses several busy highways where they route you to a nearby intersection crosswalk with traffic lights. I started on the south end and biked the 6 mile trail from their new parking lot up to the Page Field Airport. 

I had lunch there and watched all the private planes land. Near where I began there was Aldi's, Walmart, Lowes & Home Depot for shopping, it was a very busy area. I chose the Home Depot to camp for the night.

Haircut and my missing bridge
that fell out on my  birthday.

On Tuesday, Pat & Tom invited me to spend the day with them at his mother Rita's condo in Naples. Since there was no place for an RV to park there, I parked at a nearby Sam's Club. I had the morning to go get a haircut, my first of the trip. I was starting to look like a homeless person and felt I should look good visiting all my friends.

Before Tom picked me up. I called Joe & Sue Sivo since they had a condo next door to Rita. I was happy to find out that they were there and could stop over for a visit as well, They recently moved from Sheffield Lake to Chapel Hill, NC. They just got down to their condo in Naples in January.

Tom & Pat put on a nice lunch and I also met Tom's sister and brother in-law. I had a great time talking about old times and enjoying all their company. 

I realized that it would be dark in an hour so Tom drove me back to my RV and I headed to my overnight camp spot at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant near Marco Island. There were plenty of RV parking spots and I had a nice roast beef dinner. 

I left about 7 AM and headed to Collier Seminole State Park only 20 minutes away.

I snuck in the park before it opened at 8 am since the check-in time for my reserved campsite was not until 3 PM but I needed something to do today and it would be easy to drive the RV to the boat launch and unload my kayak there since it is more than a mile to the campsite. I was able to be on my adventure at 9 AM. The paddling trip must be done at near high tide to be able to get through Mud Bay. This is the link to the nearby Tide Chart. The tide takes 1-2 hours to fill Mud Bay.

There are channel markers all the way to Blackwater Bay.  The park says "The adventurous paddler can follow the Blackwater River out to the Gulf to explore the islands, or continue on to Mud Bay and then back to the Blackwater River and the boat launch".  After paddling up the Blackwater River, there was a strong current with the tide flowing against me all the way to the bay. I was able to find my way through the hundreds of small islands and eventually found the place called they called Grocery Place where I stopped for lunch at 12 noon.

 I was sure glad I had my GPS with me, trying to navigate through those small islands with no channel markers would have been impossible. There were some fishermen in small boats that I came across but I asked two if they knew if I was going the right way to Mud Bay, they had no idea.

Mud Bay had enough water if you were careful to avoid the shallow areas but I had a hard time finding the river I was looking for to get back out of the bay. But I finally found it and was back to the start after paddling 14 miles in 5 hours. 

In 2017, I paddled here with Peggy and we paddled out the Blackwater River to the bay and back, that was a 12 mile trip. I liked that I was able to navigate the entire route this time by checking the tide charts, later in the week the tide may have come too late in the day.

Now I just need to figure out what next adventure will be.