Okeechobee and East Florida

 We finally had to tear ourselves away from Cape Coral and start cruising again.  There is always this apprehension that comes when we have been land bound for a period of time and then need to get our cruising skills honed again.  Our first day was a short trip to Ft. Myers Beach to get a through-hull repaired at Olsen's Marine.  They took us right into the sling and decided that they could do a short haul and repair the damage to the seacock while we hung in the sling.  It is less expensive to do it that way so we were pleased.  The repair was less extensive than we thought and they had us back in the water in about an hour and a half.  We had cruising friends who were going to come and visit while we were in the area so they just tied us to the side of the wharf and we went and had a little libation with Bob and Lois from "Going There".  We had a great time reminiscing about our cruising time together in 2008.



Lois was probably inside.

We needed to leave Olsen's by 7:00 AM the next morning because the tide was going out and we would not be able to leave the dock if we waited too long so we walked the boat out to the end of the lift slip and headed back up to the Caloosahatchee River again.  We stopped at Ft. Myers City dock and filled up our fuel tanks.  Oooh that was painful!!!  We hadn't fueled up since Panama City, on the panhandle, so we were pretty empty.  As Flint always says, "It's only money"!  We headed east on the river and were going to be transitting our first lock since 2008 so we were renewing the process in our minds.  Flint brought us to the wall very gently and I was able to grab my line from the bow and Flint came down to the stern to grab his, but the boat kept going backwards.  He thought he had put the engines in neutral, but they were still idling in reverse.  He quickly ran up to the pilothouse and moved us to the wall again and made sure they were in neutral this time before he grabbed his rope from the lockmaster.  All was well and no damage was done (except maybe to Flint's ego).  On the other side of the lock was a national park for RVs and boats.  We tied up at one of their docks with the help of another boating couple that was there.  With my Golden Pass, it only cost us $12 a night with water and electric.  What a deal!!!  We decided to stay two nights because it was such a peaceful, beautiful place.  I saw my first alligator in the basin so that was exciting.

We waved goodbye to our alligator friend and headed east again toward Lake Okeechobee.  Moore Haven is just this side of the lake and we stayed at their city dock overnight before heading through our last lock on the west side of the lake.  There was a narrow canal approaching the lake and we needed to watch our depth at all times.  We passed Clewiston, where Roland Martin has a large sportfishing business, and headed across the lake.  It was a nice, uneventful crossing, except for the large helicopter that kept flying around us.  We wondered if he thought we were drug smugglers or something.

We arrived at Indiantown and stayed at their dock overnight before heading to the Stuart, Fl area.  We planned on anchoring in the North Fork of the St. Lucie river before entering the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) and going south to West Palm Beach to visit Flint's cousin, Ernie and Maggie Moyer.  We made the mistake of traveling on Sunday and it was crazy with boats all over the place.  There was a car show at the West Palm marina so we spent some time looking at the hot cars and then had an early dinner near the docks.  We hadn't seen them for many decades so it was good to catch up a little bit.  We were not allowed to stay at the city dock overnight so we just crossed the ICW and anchored on the other side.

The next morning we headed back north to begin our journey up Florida's east coast.  It is a lot busier on this side of Florida than on the Gulf coast.  The boats are bigger and the houses are bigger!  The previous day we had seen what looked like a brush fire in one of the wooded areas along the waterway and as we were getting closer to that area we could see a helicopter picking up bucket after bucket of water and dumping it in the woods.  We hoped that he would continue until we could get close enough to get a good picture.  It was fascinating to watch.   

We spent a night anchored at Jensen Beach in fairly high winds but our anchor held strong.  We arrived at Vero Beach and were going to experience picking up our first mooring ball. We talked through how we were going to do it the night before so we were pretty well prepared to pick up the line from the top of the floating ball without incident.  Flint eased us up to it and I was able to catch the line with my boat hook and bring it up to the bow.  We then wanted to loop our own line through the ring on the top of the ball and that took a little more effort and a few words between us before it was accomplished.  No yelling, just firm words!!!  We felt good about learning a new skill and felt safe attached to the ball.  We need to use our dinghy to go into the marina for rest rooms, showers, laundry and cable TV so it is necessary to plan our trips carefully so that we don't forget to bring along items that we need.  We stayed there almost a week because we have friends and relatives in the area.  My cousin, Melendy MacDougall Stegenga, lives in Sebastian and came down to spend some time with us and our Timberlake (Chapin, SC) friends, Don and Chris Maxfield, have a condo here and we have enjoyed visiting with them.  A childhood friend of my brother's, Bob Spiro, arrived in Vero with his boat while we were there and we had "cocktail hour" on their boat.  We have decided that we like living on the mooring ball and will use other mooring fields as they are available on our way up the coast.  We will be headed to Cocoa, Daytona and St. Augustine in the next week and will share with you our further adventures in the next post.