The next morning, we slept in.  Ahh, it felt good to sleep until 7:00 a.m.!  True, it was still the same as getting up at our normal hour in Arizona, after the two hour time difference...but who cared!

Before breakfast, we went down to the ACS Command Center on the main floor to see about getting checked in for President's Club.  We were told to come back in an hour, so we went to breakfast instead. 

The resort had a very large breakfast buffet on the lower level; it was more food than we really needed, but it was delicious.  While we ate, we talked about what to do during the day.  We didn't have any set plans until Friday (which was the day we were doing the catamaran tour during the day and the ACS Gala at night), so we were pretty much on our own until then.  Naturally, we wanted to do some geocaching while we were in Florida, and today was the perfect day to do it.  John also suggested that we rent a sailboat during the afternoon, as long as the price was right. 

After breakfast - and before returning to the Command Center to register for the President's Club - John and I walked down to the beach to price sailboat rentals.  They had three Hobies for rent for $75 an hour, which was a very good price.  John told the reps at the rental kiosk that we would return later in the day to rent one.  But first, we had geocaching to do.

Before leaving the hotel to go geocaching, John returned to the Command Center to register for the President's Club.  In the package, we received our itinerary of events, tickets for our special catamaran tour, name badges for the special Black & White Gala on Friday night, and $500 cash to use as spending money during our stay.  Yeah, I could get used to this five-star living...

Now that John was officially checked in for the President's Club, we were free to go geocaching.  Equipped with the GPS and our iPhones displaying Google Maps, John and I walked out of the resort and started walking towards the closest cache, which was located about three-quarters of a mile away.

Walking to the cache wasn't as easy as we had hoped.  What we discovered was that the residential streets didn't go all the way through; they dead-ended at the Landmark Waterway, one of the many waterways that cut through the island.  That said, our three-quarter mile walk suddenly became a much longer walk, because we had to go out to the main thoroughfare just to get around the waterway.

We followed the Landmark Waterway (along Landmark Street) to San Marco Road - one of two main streets on Marco Island - and began heading east, towards Heathwood Drive.  Once on Heathwood Drive, we would be able to access the geocache that was located on the other side of the waterway.  On the way, though, we checked the GPS to see if there was anything else along the way; and, sure enough, there was a cache located at the corner of San Marco and Heathwood, at the local clinic.  We, of course, stopped to find it, and it became our first Florida geocache find!

We then continued south on Heathwood and headed towards the next three caches.  There was one located in a parking lot next to a historical museum, and there were two others at Mackle Park.  We hoped to be able to find all of them, for a total of four finds for the day.  Considering that there were only a dozen caches on the island, that would make for a very good first day of caching.

As we approached the site of the first cache, we discovered that the entire parking lot was under construction; the area was completely fenced off, and there were bulldozers and other construction vehicles at work.  "I'd say that one is gone," John concluded, checking the GPS to be sure.  The coordinates put the cache right in the middle of the mess; we weren't likely to find it under those conditions.

So, we went to Mackle Park in hopes of finding the other two caches.  The coordinates for the first cache led us to an open grassy area, where there had once been a picnic table.  At first, that didn't look right and we thought perhaps that the coordinates were off. When we read the cache description on the Internet, though, we discovered that the cache had been attached to that picnic table at one time; apparently, both were gone now.  Hmmm...

The last cache - a mystery cache - was located by the pond in the middle of Mackle Park, a quarter of a mile away.  After figuring out the puzzle connected to the cache, John and I walked across the park to see if we could find it.  As we passed by the pond, John noticed something that he had to point out to me.

"Look, honey: ducks!" he said.

"What about them?" I asked.  I should have known what I was doing...

"Do you know where they are?"

Oh, no...

"They're sitting on the duck of the bay!"

*Groan!*  He did it again...another clever groaner of a pun...

We spent about twenty minutes looking for the geocache, but in the end, we walked away empty-handed.  It was obviously no longer there.  Disappointed that we had only found one of the four caches on our list, we decided to start back towards the hotel, to see what else we could do with our day.

To return to the resort, we continued along Heathwood Drive, until we reached Winterberry Drive; Winterberry was one of the few roads that crossed over the Landmark Waterway and connected with Collier Boulevard, where the Marriott was located.  At this point, since we were no longer looking for caches, we decided to walk at a brisk pace, for the exercise; it would be good for us, considering all of the free food and drink that we would be having over the next few days.  By the time we finished walking, we had done a total of four miles!

Upon arriving at the resort, John and I decided to go check out the spa, so that we could make an appointment for a couples massage.  We managed to get an appointment for Saturday, late in the morning, just before lunchtime.

Then, we returned to our room so that we could change into our swimwear.  John was chomping at the bit to go rent a sailboat; the wind was just right, so he wanted to jump at the chance to get out on the water before the weather turned on us.  (There was rain in the forecast for the afternoon.)

On the way to the beach, we stopped at the coffee shop to buy a couple of items for our excursion: some snacks, a couple of beverages, and a disposable waterproof camera.  (There was no way we were bringing the digital camera with us. We even left the iPhones in the room.)  We took all of that stuff with us down to the beach, to the sailboat rental kiosk.

We rented one of the Hobie cats for two hours, which was just enough time to kill the morning.  After a brief run-down on the boat, the rental rep helped us shove off into the water and out onto the Gulf of Mexico. 

And that was when I learned how experienced John was with sailing.  Although we had never sailed together before - heck, I had never been sailing before - John had learned how to sail when he was a kid in Chicago.  His parents had had a custom-made canoe with a mast and a sail, and they taught John how to use it.  It was a skill he had never forgotten either; and during his last few trips to Montego Bay, he rented a sailboat several times to help pass the time.

Within the first fifteen minutes of our run on the water, John decided to show off what he knew.  He got us going at such a fast clip that we were up on one runner and nearly went over.  Of course, I was completely unprepared for this and was on the wrong side of the boat - I nearly flipped out of the boat and into the warm water!  And as for our snacks and beverages and waterproof camera, they all went flying overboard!

We spent the next fifteen minutes trying to retrieve the items that were now bobbing in the water.  We managed to get the beverages and the snacks (which were now water-logged and no longer edible), but the camera was a complete loss.  So naturally, we have no pictures to show that we actually did go sailing that day.  After a while, we had to give up on it and continue sailing, or else we weren't going to have any fun at all.

During the next hour, John sailed a little more conservatively; he had already given me a good scare.  He also told me what I needed to do and where I needed to sit as the boat zipped along the water.  Once I knew what to do, I had a lot more fun.

"I wonder what they would do if we just took this out onto the open sea," John mused.  "We could probably be in Texas in two days."  And he started humming Jimmy Buffett's "Slow Boat to China".  Romantic!

We made several runs back and forth across the bay, enjoying the cool wind and the spray of the warm sea water, for the next hour.  Soon, a light rain began to fall.  At first, it wasn't all that bad because we were already wet from the sea water; the only difference was that the sea water was warm like bath water, but the rain was cool.  So we kept sailing.

Then, the skies opened up on us.  It rained so hard that it was difficult to see through it.  We decided that we needed to head back towards shore right away, so that we could get out of the storm.  Never mind that it was fifteen minutes early...

We made it to the shore in one piece and were immediately met by the rental rep, who helped us drag the sailboat onto the shore.  Quickly, we settled the bill then ran back into the hotel to get out of the rain. 

After we dried off and got dressed, we decided to go down to the bar for lunch.  Naturally, by that time, the rain had let up somewhat, so we headed to the Tiki Bar - the outdoor bar, by the pool - to see what they had on their menu.  Although their menu wasn't all that impressive (just burgers and hot dogs), we discovered a drink that we simply had to try.  It was called a Dirty Banana and it was a combination of Crème de Cacao, Rum, and Crème de Banane.  We loved it so much that it became our drink of choice for the rest of the trip.

We had two drinks each at the Tiki Bar then walked over to the Quinn's on the Beach Restaurant for lunch.  We were seated on the patio, under the awning, where we relaxed and watched the storms roll in.  The rain was falling heavily now, and we were glad that we were no longer out in it.

We spent a couple of hours at Quinn's on the Beach, eating lunch and drinking Dirty Bananas until we were nicely relaxed and sleepy.  That was when we decided to go back to our room for a nap... After all, we did more before lunch than most people do all month...

The rain continued to fall, off and on, for the rest of the day, so John and I passed the time by shopping at the stores in the resort and by relaxing in our room.  (John did have some work to do; technically, he was still on the clock.)  We also made dinner reservations at the Verdi's American Bistro, which was located a mile away on Collier Boulevard.  Although there were several restaurants on the resort property, we wanted to get away from the resort for a very nice dinner out.

It was still raining when we tried to leave for dinner, and had we not been dressed up, we would have just walked anyway.  Instead, we called for a cab to take us to the restaurant.  We had to wait about twenty minutes for our car - and, of course, by that time, the rain had let up so we could have walked!  That's Murphy's Law for you!

We had a great time at the Verdi's American Bistro, which was a lovely Italian-American restaurant located in a strip mall on North Collier Boulevard.  Everything tasted good, and the staff there was friendly.  And after dinner, we emerged from the restaurant to find that the rain had finally stopped, allowing us to walk back to the resort.

By the time we returned to the Marriott, we were very tired; it had been a long, busy day, full of adventure, but now, it was time for bed. 

And in the morning, more adventure awaited us...

Return to Boats, Beaches, Bars and Dirty Bananas.

Return to Naked in the Woods.