Life in Fort Myers

Since our last update we traveled west across the Okeechobee Waterway to Fort Myers as quickly as possible. Our cruising days looked like this:

• St. Mary's, GA to Amelia Island, FL
• Amelia Island to St. Augustine, where we spent 3 days waiting for good weather
• St. Augustine to New Smyrna Beach, where we met Mark's cousin Jane and her husband Fred, visiting from Colorado 
• New Smyrna Beach to an anchorage near Vero
• That anchorage to Stuart where we turned west on the Okeechobee Waterway - we  spent the night tied to a dolphin at the Mayaca lock.
• Mayaca  lock to a private dock near River Forest where we were reunited with our buddies Pam and John on "Short Vacation" 
• We drove to the Stuart Boat Show with Pam and John and met up with Coletta and Tom from "Greek's Folly."
• Our Guttenberg neighbors Al and Tammy cruised with us from River Forest to Fort Myers  

Tied to the dolphins at Mayaca Lock

We arrived in Fort Myers on January 14 and have been making the most of our 2-month stay here. Our first visitors were Bob and Karen from Des Moines.

Karen and Bob with us

Next up were Guttenberg friends Ken and Jane- unfortunately I wasn't in picture-taking mode yet.

Then Mark's brother Bill spent a few days with us. He and Mark took in the Muscle Car Museum and the Ford-Edison estates, and checked out Sanibel. Bill also joined the Looper lunch crowd at Ford's Garage.

Pam and Becky at the Looper lunch 

Mark and John

Our next reunion was with Kathy and John from "Serenity," who were in town by car. Then it was lunch with the crews of "Serenity," "Sea Horse," (Dan and Angie), and "Radiance" (Ray and Linda.)

We met more friends for docktails during the next few days- Rob and Glenda on "Monterey," and Mandy and Jim on "Shell Bell." Friends from 2 years ago- Pam and Eric on "Pier Pressure" joined "Short Vacation" on their dock, so we  got to see them again. And still, my camera did not made an appearance!

And the other day who should turn up on our dock? Dan and Sarah from Guttenberg/Muscatine! Is anyone left on Esmann Island??

At least I remembered to pull out my iPhone when these folks came on board :

Kent, Jan ("Follow That Dream"), John ("Short Vacation"),  Peggy ("Aqua Vitae"), Mark

Mark, Hans ("Aqua Vitae"), Pam ("Short Vacation")

Larry and Shirley ("We Wine A Lot")

Mark and Becky with Susan and Foster ("Quo Vadimus") and Glenda and Rob ("Monterey")

It hasn't been all play and no work by any means! We have been working almost every day on getting "Mara Beel" in tip top shape. Mark started sanding the teak rail last year and has hired Wyatt to finish sanding and bleaching. Now he's assisting Wyatt with the varnishing- 2 coats are on so far, 1 a day. Several more to go.

The rail looks sooo much better after only 2 coats.

Our forward heat/air conditioner died, so we are having that replaced- which means that the interior of Mara Beel is a mess. This is (hopefully) a 2-day project.

The dead unit

I have organized and inventoried my pantry- thanks to John Scott for building these shelves in the forward hanging locker! I also cleaned out every cabinet, locker and drawer on the boat. Good thing we have our van here to transport things to Goodwill! Now I am cleaning/polishing every wood surface in this boat- and there are a lot of them!

I actually know what provisions I have on board now!

We will be flying home soon to welcome our fourth grandson, who is due to make his appearance in a couple weeks! We plan to start cruising again in mid-March.

Clewsiton to WP Franklin Lock and Dam/ Campground

We are docked right next to the Franklin lock in an RV park with 8 slips, much like the one at St. Lucie lock. We like this one a lot better! The grounds are immaculate, and their is a viewing platform for the dam. The best part is the $15/night fee.

It didn't take Mark long to make new friends. (big surprise, I know.) But sometimes I am still amazed. He ran into a couple near their RV and got to chatting, of course. These folks are from Connecticut and their last name was the same as former patients of Mark's back in Muscatine. What are the odds that they could be related? Mark should buy a lottery ticket, because the Connecticut travelers are second cousin to his patients! How does the man do this? He naturally invited them to the boat for a beer, and even remembered (belatedly) to tell me he had done so. 

Tomorrow we will move on to Fort Myers, a 12-mile run down the Caloosahatchee River that will take close to 2 hours. Then we will settle in for a couple months.

Okeechobee Waterway

Days: 157

Miles:     62                           Total Miles: 2,928

Locks today:     2                     Total locks:  38

Today we crossed the Lake Okeechobee Waterway, along with Charis and Patriyachtik. We left Moore Haven around 0730 and immediately locked through the dam there. 

Daybreak in Moore Haven

For the first part of the trip the waterway continued to be a narrow canal. We saw birds everywhere eating breakfast- Cormorants, vultures, gulls, ospreys, and even a pair of nesting eagles.

Looks like this osprey grabbed a gar.

I am pleased that my new camera captured a sharp image of this flying eagle from a moving boat at quite a distance.

Construction work along the bank

At Clewiston we turned left to take the channel that crosses the lake, rather than choosing the rim route. There was not much in the way of wind and waves. This lake is so shallow that it is easily stirred up. In fact, if our boat were to sink out there, the top part of it would still be above water! We knew that the sugar cane fields near the lake are burned off this time of year, so we wanted to avoid that smoke.

Smoke from burning cane fields

The lake at this area is about 27 miles wide, so our crossing took approximately 3 hours.  We finally arrived at Port Mayaca lock on the east side, to find it wide open. All we had to do was to motor on through- a nice surprise.

Charis and Patriyachtik enter Port Mayaca lock.

The waterway was now the St. Lucie Canal- another narrow ditch the rest of the way to our marina near Stuart. We had a little excitement with a railroad swing bridge. It has just five feet of clearance and is left open unless a train is approaching. Our leader called the bridge tender, who told us that there was a train coming but he would leave the bridge open for us. He must have thought we were fast boats, because several times he called on the radio telling us to hurry to beat the train. I have never thought that racing a train is a good idea- especially through a open bridge. We were the last boat in line, concerned that the tender would decide to start closing the span at any moment. It was tense! The tender exhorted us to keep up our speed even through the bridge's no wake zone. It sounded like he was about to wet his pants. Our boats, which typically travel at 8 mph or so, were streaking through that bridge at 11 mph. Whew! The bridge began to close the second we cleared it. I continued to look back, expecting to see the train any second. It was a full 6 minutes later when the train appeared-- not quite as close a call as we thought!

We saw this family n the water seining for fish.

Our flotilla of three arrived at River Forest Marina around 3:30, in plenty of time for docktails.  Tomorrow it looks like we we all go our separate ways.

Moving On

Sunday - Monday March 29 and 30

Days: 155-156

Miles:     122                           Total Miles: 2,866

Locks today:     2                     Total locks:  36

Yesterday we left our winter “home” in Punta Gorda and resumed our travels. We wanted to leave on Friday, but a significant thunderstorm and cold front with plenty of wind changed our minds. Instead we cleaned on Saturday- all windows, the fly bridge, and the interior of Mara Beel are now all ship shape, or “Bristol Fashion.”

Sunday we untied our lines and cruised out of Charlotte Harbor and into the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. We dislike traveling on Sundays in general, because so many fast, crazy boaters are out playing around. We were “waked” repeatedly and severely by inconsiderate go-fast boats. We had tucked away whatever could potentially be tossed around inside, but the contents of cabinets were jumbled, and our recliner slid across the salon. Good grief. Then we traversed what’s nown as the “Miserable Mile” due to the narrowness of the channel and the extreme shallowness on the edges of the channel. The trip was not all relaxing.

Lots of boats!

The Burroughs house in Fort Myers

With a huge sigh of relief we tied up at the Fort Myers Municipal Yacht Basin. On our walkabout, we discovered two looper boats we know- Charis and Spiritus. Ken, Ann and Eddy joined us for docktails, along with Gina and Steve from Island Time, who live in FM. We ate a late supper at a Mexican restaurant nearby. Great to see fellow Loopers again!

Good friends

Today we left Fort Myers with the sunrise and headed east on the Caloosahatchee River. The river banks were lined with beautiful homes and their docks for many miles. We locked through Franklin lock and then Ortona lock. I (Becky) was holding the bow line and Mark was at the stern. I was startled to see how the lock chambers filled with water to lift us up. This was the first time we’ve seen the upper gates open slightly to allow water to rush through the gap and fill the chamber.  Pretty cool! Fortunately we did not have to wait for either lock to be ready. Franklin lock had the first female lock attendant we’ve encountered, and she was the best! She knew the sun would be blinding us, and planned accordingly. She actually handed ropes to us and stayed around to talk. Lo and behold, she is a native Iowan!

Sunrise on the Caloosahatchie

Cattle grazing among the palms

Fort Denaud swing bridge is only 5 feet above the water, so it has to be opened to allow boats to pass through.

 

This lady is the bridge opener. She has to walk out to the middle of the bridge to operate the controls. She has a great sense of humor !

After an 8 hour trip we pulled in at the Moore Haven city dock. We were followed by Patriyachtic and Charis. The wall is just long enough for our 3 boats and another non-Looper that is also here. Moore Haven is a small town- in fact we all walked across the street to pay our docking fees at City Hall.  On our walkabout we discovered a 3.5 to 1 ratio of Pit Bulls per block.  In fact there were quite a few big scary-looking dogs in fenced yards. This is definitely Old Florida.

It's almost impossible to see the house behind all the vegetation.

The end of the day.