This post has some underlined and colored links to maps that will show you exactly where I was at the time. As an example, here's where I was in the last episode, at Boca Grande. I also added some links to last weeks post.

Thursday Evening, 31 December 2015 - New Year's Eve - Picking up where I left off earlier today, I returned to the boat, oiled the bicycle, which I had gotten the opportunity to rinse well with fresh water, then put the dinghy on the davits in preparation for moving a few miles across the bay to Pelican Pass. I hear it's very well protected there and has another state park, at which I might even get to see some 'gators. I probably won't do much swimming there. ;-) ...and I doubt that I'll have access to the internet. After that, I decided to finish off the year with a steak for dinner.
                  Just to make a few of my friends in the mid to northern climes jealous, it's almost 9pm, and I'm sitting it the cockpit of the boat shoeless and shirtless, enjoying a beautiful star filled night with hardly a breath of wind and 72°F. I'm waiting for the fireworks to start, and when they do, it should be spectacular reflecting off the extremely calm water. The best display will probably be at the nearest marina, but I should see fireworks in all directions, since Charlotte Harbor is almost totally surrounded by cities. I'm curious to see if I'll be watching fireworks visible in the air over cities that are over the horizon. At sea, the horizon is about 7 miles away, and this harbor is much larger than that. Many of today's fireworks go several hundred feet in the air and that should make them visible here.
                  I'd overheard one of the marina employees say their fireworks would start at 10pm, but when they started at 9, I thought "what the heck". It turned out to be the city of Boca Grande's show and it lined up directly beyond the marina. A pretty impressive display for a small island town. I am starting to see other displays around the harbor. About 15 so far. Most are so far away, I can't hear the explosions, but that's okay, I just heard a solitary porpoise go by, then, about 10 minutes later a pod of them passed going the other direction. Other than that, it's almost dead silence on the water, and so calm.
                  At 10pm, the marina's fireworks went off and lasted about 12 minutes. Also very impressive...and a fantastic ending. Perhaps the best I've seen with the exception of the fireworks at the 2002 Olympics is Salt Lake City. Those were phenomenal. I was surprised that more boats didn't come out of the marina to see the display over the open bay. Only two others made it out.

Friday, 1 January 2016 - A new year, a new location. I moved south a short distance across the opening to the bay to Cayo Costa State Park, an island park that because the only way to get there is by boat, is very pristine, or so they say. I'll see tomorrow. I didn't go ashore this evening. I just came into the bay and dropped anchor. Tricky getting in and very shallow. An almost perfectly calm evening and night. Great for sleeping.

Saturday, 2 January 2016 - I hiked across the island about .8 mile, then walked to the north end, which is directly across the inlet from Boca Grande Lighthouse State Park, that I visited in my last episode. The whole time, I had the whole beach to myself. I then continued on around the island on a trail just off the beach; nothing there but nature and me. During the second world war, there had been a quarantine site at the north end, but almost nothing is left. All foreign ships that came in had to wait for the doctor there to inspect every crewman on board. I couldn't even find the remains of the doctor's house or the canal to it. Everything is very overgrown; palmettos, palms, mangroves. I'd hate to have to cut a trail through there, almost impenetrable for the most part. They say there be gators here, but I couldn't spot any. I did see an armadillo, however, and wild hog tracks. I think I hiked about 6 miles. The wind blew all day and all night and I had everything turned off except my anchor light, so my batteries got charged up to about 75%.

Sunday, 3 January - After a night of having the boat bump on the bottom constantly, I decided I'd better get out of here while the getting's good. High tide. I still bumped getting out, but not bad. When making breakfast, I usually add milk to my egg to scramble it. This morning, it came out of the jug in curds. Not bad in the egg, but I decided to not try it on my cereal. Time to get the refrigeration worked on. I think tomorrow's going to be very expensive. I'm headed to Gasparilla Marina, but have stopped just shy of there at noon. It's raining and a slight fog. I definitely don't want to get caught in fog. I'll talk to someone from Boca Grande Aire refrigeration repair in the morning, make arrangements for a repairman, then continue on to the marina...I hope. I motored all the way here today. What took me about half an hour to travel over the the state park on Friday took me about an hour and a half going back into the wind. Now, however, I'm at anchor and all comfy cozy it the saloon on my boat while the wind blows the rain around outside. Gasparilla Sound is, although only a small part of Charlotte Harbor, still fairly large and I'm right out to the open, only a few hundred yards off the intercostal waterway, but the sound has lots of little islands that keep large waves from forming, so it's pretty calm here. This is the first rain we've had in quite awhile and the boat really needed the salt and dirt washed off. I can't believe how dirty the boat gets out on the water. Even the underside of the bimini top gets black dirt or soot all over it. Motoring all the way topped up my batteries, which I've been having trouble keeping charged since I hadn't run the engine much. Pelican Bay, where Cayo Cost SP is, is well protected from swell and wind, so my wind charger couldn't produce enough energy to keep the batteries up by itself.
                  Since the refrigeration has been off or barely running for several days, I think I'd better have another steak. It's probably aged enough.

Monday, 4 January - I awoke around sunrise and, expecting to head into the marina for refrigeration repairs, prepared the fenders on the boat and readied to weigh anchor. A sunny day, but it was pretty windy, so I called to make sure that I'b be able to get into the marina. They said "yes". I then called the Grande Aire, the refrigeration specialists to make arrangements to meet me at the docks. That done, I thought I was all set to go, however, the wind had picked up a bit more, so I thought I'd better check with the marina again. The marina advertises that they have at least 7 feet of water, even at low tide, but they sit in the northeast corner of the sound and the wind was pretty strong out of the northeast. I knew that could push the water to the other side of the bay and wanted to confirm that they would still have enough water. Well, maybe not. The manager of the marina was consulted and told of my 6.5 foot draft, and he said under these conditions, he wouldn't try it. If he wouldn't, I won't either.
                  Unfortunately, the forecast is for even stronger winds tomorrow and into Wednesday. That's a long time to just sit here, but I'll have plenty to do. As I mentioned, the boat is quite dirty, so most of the afternoon, I cleaned the saloon ceiling, walls and counters. The boat isn't insulated, so sweat forms on the surfaces and, for some reason, leaves yellow spots, so I wiped everything down. I also wiped down some of my tools and tool bags. I knew going into this that metal tool boxes wouldn't be the best because of rust, so I replaced some of them with canvas bags. Now those are starting to mildew it the high humidity. You can't win against Mother Nature. I also did some more research on the refrigeration and charged the unit with more R134a. It's running again, but I'm sure that I'll still need to have a professional find the leaks, clean the system out, and replace the refrigerant. I had hoped that I could merely add three or four ounces of refrigerant myself every month or two, but it's leaking way too much for that to happen.

Tuesday, 5 January - The wind blew about 15 its all night, and I left the refrigerator and an anchor light on. The wind charger almost kept up. In fact, it only let the batteries lose 4% of their charge over night, and when I turned off the anchor light, the batteries started gaining charge again. The wind picked up to over 20 kts. as the morning passed, so I left the reefer going, charged this computer and my phone, and listened to the VHF radio as I had a breakfast of bacon and dry cereal. No milk. Then it was the stove's turn for a good cleaning and some studying of my systems owner's manuals. I'm still hoping that the wind will die down enough to get into the marina tomorrow, but wind is predicted until afternoon. We'll see.
                  Two of a sailor's worst nightmares are running aground, which I've already had my share of, and dragging anchor and then running aground, so I've been keeping a good track of the arc my boat makes as it swings with the changes in wind direction. If I get outside that arc, I'm dragging, but, so far, so good. I'm only in 8 ft of water with about 90 ft. of heavy chain out on a 70 lb. anchor.
                  I've also been studying my charts of the coast south of here for hours. There certainly aren't many places I can duck into for protection from storms or heavy seas between here and the Florida Keys. About the only one is at Naples, Florida, and, out of all the places you can see inside the barrier island on this map, the only place I can access is after the first right turn after coming in, right where the pin marker is. Everything else, except the channel, is too shallow, and you can't anchor in the channel.

Wednesday, 6 January - I almost forgot that I need to get this out. I spent the morning cleaning some contacts in the engine room and confirming that, yes, I do indeed need a new starter battery. I did also contact the refrigeration people and marina to confirm that will go into the marina tomorrow and I can have the refrigerator worked on on Friday morning at 8am. Hopefully, that will let me get out of there with just one overnight stay. The winds should be lighter tomorrow and high tide is at 1:20pm. If they complete the work quickly, I can get out at high tide on Friday at 2pm.
                  Time to send this off.