A cold front blew through last night and with it came strong winds and much lower temperatures. The winds made for an interesting time getting off the dock at the Glades RV Resort. We finally muscled Samba away from the dock and made it out of the little "marina".
Since we were sitting beneath a big, old tree at the marina dock, the winds covered us in little, prickly leaves. Samba was trashed. Ughhh. With the morning dew, these little guys stuck like glue and took most of the day to remove.
Much of the day was spent traveling through farmland out in the middle of the state.
When not otherwise occupied, Carol spent time trying to get rid of all of the leaves.
We passed through 2 locks today. This particular one had an 8 foot drop. With that much water leaving the lock, there tends to be lots of turbulence so we are constantly adjusting fenders and lines.
If you look closely, you can see the dramatic difference in height as the water cascades out of the lock.
Today, we went through several drawbridges.
This was an interesting "swing bridge". When you call the bridge tender, she walks out to the middle of the bridge and rides it as it swings open. I'd say she was really a dizzy dame!
With the cold front and cooler temperatures came a beautiful, cloudless sky. Thank you Lord! Notice Carol still wielding the broom on those pesky leaves.
We passed a number of orange groves along the waterway.
This was different. Only 1/2 of the bridge raised which meant we needed to scurry over to the side to get through.
This railroad bridge had a massive counterweight. Quite the engineering feat!
Ahhh. Ft Myers at last. The river through this section was quite wide and quite shallow so we had to be careful to follow the marker buoys. Even then, we generally only had 3 or 4 feet of water under the keel.
Our marina here was crowded but they were able to find us a slip for a few nights while we visit Carol's aunt.
