After a truly lovely and peaceful night tied between the 2 large pilings, we awoke to a rather soupy morning. It was clear at 6:00 when Jim had coffee on the top deck. By 7:00, it looked like this!
Then, the fog began to ebb and flow. Interesting.
At 7:45, we felt there was enough light to move into the lock and on into Lake Okeechobee. The lock master said it wasn't too bad in the lock, so in we went.
Once in the lock, Carol took the aft line position and Jim the forward one. We had to turn off the engine and adjust lines as the water level changed. Since the lines are pretty nasty, we wear gloves. The locks require that we wear life jackets when in the locks.
Notice that the Moore Haven Lock, on the other side of the lake, is 39 miles away!
We had a line of observers cheering us on as we left the lock.
Once on the lake, the fog closed in thick and heavy. Our biggest concern was meeting other boats and possibly running into marker buoys! Ouch! Fortunately, our radar was pretty accurate and helped us identify both in time to take evasive action!
This was one of the larger marker buoys!
The lake water is nasty! Lots of tanins and mud. Notice how brown our wake is.
We encountered a number of these little floating flotsam islands. Since you never know whether it might be a log festooned with greenery or just a floating group of water lilies, we always avoided them.
Eventually, the fog started to lift and we could relax a little.
Surprisingly, though Lake Okeechobee is the largest freshwater lake in the US, it is reallllly shallow. We closely followed a course marked out by the Army Corps of Engineers that kept us in mostly 8 to 10 feet of water. Other areas like the one below were 1 to 3 feet or dry!
This big tank was sitting out in the middle of the lake. The birds seemed to like it.
At this point, we're in a dredged part of the lake. On either side of us, the water depth was less than 2 feet!
Once off the lake, we followed the large dike around the periphery of the lake. It was long, deep and quiet. Just us and some occasional wildlife and some dike repair work.
For some reason, the lock operator didn't like to answer his radio until we were right up to the lock and ready to go in. Frustrating because we didn't know if he was there and whether we could enter!
This was our 2nd lock of the day. There are still 2 more between us and Fort Myers.
My lovely lady patiently managing her station.
No sooner had we exited the lock than we had to wait for a swinging railroad bridge to open.
Once away from all the busyness of the lock and bridges, Carol started coiling and stowing lines. She is a wonderful first mate!
Randy & Jane Stouder, friends from Warsaw, had driven their RV to a park that just happened to lie on the Caloosahatchie waterway so we were fortunate to find a small dock there to spend the night on. The entrance was a little small and not marked but we made it OK.
The "dock" was another thing entirely. The volunteer dock manager was very friendly and helpful and we were able to tie up just fine.
Randy & Jane picked us up, showed us the RV resort which was amazingly large and then showed us their beautiful RV. It was stunning and remarkable. Then we had pizza at Grumpy's. A great end to a great day.
