Across the Big "O"

Sat-Mon Feb 11-13, 2017

We departed Ft. Myers looking forward to new adventures. But I will miss the Florida west coast water. It is such an amazing sea foam green. 

Just 15 miles on the Okeechobee Waterway at the Franklin Dam, the lockmaster hollers at us that he is from Parkersburg, West Virginia. Never too far from homefolks!

LaBelle was a nice place to stop for the day and it was free! Only a 4 block walk to Dollar General Market for fresh veggies.

Sunday we entered the Ortona Lock and they opened the upstream gate to let water in the lock to lift us up to the next level--we had to really hold on to the lock lines! The water leveled out and the lock gates fully opened. But we let loose of the lines too early and the current spun us completely around. Kelly kept the boat from crashing into the walls and we finished the spin heading in the correct direction. Whew-we were lucky! It happened too fast to get pictures or a video.

We arrived at Roland Martin Marina for the evening. Remember way back, he had a fishing show on Saturday mornings? He no longer owns the marina, but this iguana was really cool!

Today we had to travel across the Okeechobee Lake. The route around the southern shore is more scenic, but the Corps of Engineers was working on a bridge and had the channel blocked. So the weather forecast was decent and off we go across for a 3-1/2 hour ride. The sunshine was bright and a slight chop on the lake for almost half the lake. Then the wind picked up and with it the clouds and 2 to 4 foot waves. 

 

Much of Lake O is very shallow, so we had to pay attention to stay on course until the last 5 miles when the wind died down. A good time to stop at the St. Lucie Locks Marina.