Location: Ft. Myers, Florida
Position: 26 39.457 N 081 52.638 W
Up through this past week we've been
traveling over familiar ground. We've already been up and down the
East coast via both the ICW and the Atlantic Ocean multiple times.
After a night in Stuart (when we last wrote) we set off on a new
adventure. We decide to take the Okeechobee Waterway and cross to
the West coast of Florida via Lake Okeechobee, the second largest
freshwater lake in the US (after Lake Michigan). Okeechobee is a
Seminole Indian word meaning Big Water. We will be negotiating 5
locks, 6 opening bridges and be traversing some very shallow water.
The limiting height is a 49' railroad
bridge at Port Mayaca on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee. Our
masthead is 46' above the water (we think) and the water levels in
the lake are currently fairly high. This means we may only have a
foot or so of clearance when we go through. We call ahead to the
lock tender who knows the daily water levels and bridge clearance.
He tells us that today's clearance is 48.65 feet. We're pretty sure
we're less than that , but we've never actually measured. Because we
are not certain, we take it very slowly, hopefully allowing us enough
time to stop and back away before anything breaks, although we're not
really sure about that strategy either. Julie is laying on the coach
roof looking up so as to, theoretically, tell Mark if it looks like
we'll hit. We are happy to report that the tip of 
After the railroad bridge, we spend our
first night in the canal just East of Lake Okeechobee tied between
two dolphins. Not the aquatic mammal sort of dolphin. Nor the "mahi
mahi" / "dorado" fish sort of dolphin. No, this
particular sort of dolphin is several pilings bound together that can
be used as a place a tug or barge (or even a sailboat!!) can tie up
while waiting for the lock. We call ahead to the lock tender and ask
permission to tie up for the night so we can get an early
lock-through. He says "sure, enjoy your night" – really
nice guy, the same one we've been talking to about the railroad
bridge height. While we're getting settled, we manage to misjudge
the distance between the dolphins. We get the bow line tied off,
but it's too short to allow us to back up to the other dolphin at the
stern. So Mark lowers the dinghy, Julie breaks out the "really,
really long line" and we get it set up so all we have to do is
slip the lines in the morning. Nothing to it.
We enjoy chatting with the lock tenders
– they always seem to have good stories. Like the fellow who told
us about the automatic manatee sensors on the lock doors.
Apparently, if the sensor is triggered by a passing manatee while the
doors are closing, they reverse themselves and open so the manatee
won't get squished. The operator can't override this automatic
safety behavior until it's tried and failed to close three times in
succession, adding about an extra half hour to the locking. When
that happens during the last lock-through of the day and delays
quitting time, he says "that dang manatee is no longer your
friend".
We hope we'll be able to finally get
some sailing in crossing the lake. We lock through and get out on
the lake at about 8am, but there's no wind. We're in a big open
place where we can sail, but there's no wind. The deepest spot we
see is 10 feet deep so when the wind kicks up it can get very choppy
Sigh. So we motor.....again! Just as we're almost across the 25 mile
lake passage and are in a narrow, rocky, dredged channel, the wind
picks up. Sheesh! We now have wind, but we can't sail in such narrow
quarters. And so it goes.
We make the turn from the lake back
into the canal and – Holy Molies! - there are loads of little
islands in front of us! Has the canal shoaled in? Can we even get
through here? We slowly nose our way in and find 17' of water!
These are all floating islands of some sort of aquatic plant (turns
out to be water hyacinth, an invasive species from South America),
one little island even has a 4 foot tall heron standing on it! How
strange – we weave our way through them, not wanting the plants and
roots to get caught on our rudders or in our propeller. Gradually,
they diminish until they're all behind us. Another first for us.
The Moore Haven lock is partially
broken and is only opening on our port side. We manage to squeeze
our 14' beam through a surprising small seeming 25' opening and lock
through. Night 2 of our journey is spent tied to the Moore Haven
town dock.
A strong cold front is scheduled to
pass through this weekend (8-9 December), and we've read that there's
a free dock at LaBelle, a small town on the western portion of the
canal about 25 miles from Moore Haven. We pull in and learn that
there are 8 slips with wifi from a nearby library, water and
electricity – all for free. There's a "3 days in, 8 days out"
policy posted on the bulkhead.
Our first day ashore we learn that
there's a Christmas parade, a "Christmas in the park" with
vendors, food, and a Santa Claus, followed by a Christmas boat
parade, all on Saturday. Unfortunately, Saturday would be our 4th
night. Julie calls the dock master and asks if we can stay a 4th
night so we can attend the festivities. "Sure!" he says.
Our second night there we attend a food
truck rodeo in the park. There are 8 different "lunch wagons"
offering everything from wings to Mexican to French / Mediterranean
to hot dogs to ice cream to BBQ to Greek – and it all smells and
looks wonderful. We choose the French / Middle Eastern truck and
bring our delicious lamb and chicken laden pitas back to Rachel for a
night off from cooking and doing dishes. Yum!
Our third night there a big power boat
named "Fiddlin' Around" with 4 guys on it literally squeaks
in between the pilings two slips over from us. We help them tie up
and after a while, one of them comes up on deck with a fiddle and
starts playing Christmas carols and we start singing along. They are
doing all the waterways in the US and travel 1 week together out of
every month on this, their third boat. The first was a pontoon boat
that sank somewhere along the TenTom Canal. We never learned what
the second boat was or what happened to it. The fiddle player has a
"small plane" they use to fly in to wherever they happen to
be cruising. They turn out to be really nice guys and a lot of fun.
We regret seeing them go the next day.
So now it's parade day. Unfortunately,
after a week or more of 80 F days, our cold front is coming through
and the low for tonight will be about 40 degrees F. It's already
cooling off quite a bit – everyone is in jeans and wooly jumpers
and attendance seems way down at the park. The vendors are pretty
much standing around talking amongst themselves and the line for
Santa is only about 3 kids deep. It's a shame, because we've really
come to like this little town.
The evening is topped of by the boat
parade, which goes right behind our stern. It only consists of 3
boats but they are all very enthusiastic and circle 3 times, to make
it look like there are more boats!
We wake up on Sunday morning to 40
degrees F with 36 degrees F and a frost warning predicted in LaBelle
for tonight. Fort Myers forecast has tonight's low set at 43, a
good 7 degrees F warmer, so we say goodbye to LaBelle and make
tracks. After a pretty long, breezy, very chilly but sunny day we
arrive at our anchorage at 3pm and sit in the cockpit in the sun,
relishing the warming rays. We're on Florida's west coast now and
look forward to doing some exploring. And, after tonight, things are
supposed to be warming up – we sure hope so, because we are really
looking forward to that, as well.
Stay warm, be safe, and remember - it's
almost Christmas!
