Fort Myers Thru Lake Okeechobee
Wednesday, March 30
Left Fort Myers Yacht Basin marina traveling with C- Life, Robert and Kay Creech and with Greek’s Folly, Tom and Colletta Kataras.
C-Life
Greeks’s Folly
Weather was overcast and windy. It took us over 20 minutes to detach all the lines because there was a huge wind on our beam. Nobody was there to help us we had to do it on your own, but we did pretty well. Even though it took us longer than we would have hoped. The other two boats that we were traveling with went by while we were trying to get out of the slip.
Went through Ortona and Moore Haven locks. These locks are different than the ones on the Mississippi River. Instead of closing both ends of the lock and the water filling from the bottom of the lock, they open one door slightly and let’s the water rush in. In the first lock, we were on the port side of the lock and it put a lot of strain on us. Took about half an hour or more to get the first lock raised. Met a very nice elderly African-American lock master in the second lock that talked me through the lock and gave me some tips. Since we were going up it was easy to tie your boat off to the cleat and just tighten it once in a while. Ropes are absolutely filthy so you must wear gloves. Water current was strong as the lock filled so wearing a life jacket was a great idea too. We were at the front of the lock so we got most of the rushing water.
Got to Roland Martin’s marina in Clewiston. This is a very narrow channel. John did a great job spinning the boat around sliding it into the dock expertly.
You go down this extremely narrow channel. Then, you put your bow up to the dock and the dock master grabs a forward line and helps to spin the boat around.
Greek’s Folly is behind us and did not have enough room to spin around until the next morning when we all left.
Here we are stern to stern.
Sam, the dock master.
In the morning, Sam had him pull further down the narrow channel to a point where he could spin around.
Again, it was very narrow and the marina is can be separated from Lake Okeechobee when the water is high. So we had to go thru the lock.
You can see the lock in front of the boat.
When we left in the morning, we decided to take the rim route instead of going across the lake to prevent a rough lake crossing. Greek’s Folly had never done that route and we decided we wanted to see more wildlife.
The Rim Route
Birds Galore
Either a rock inspector or a rock collector…
Kay spotted gators for us.
Got to the Torri Island swing bridge at 9:35 AM. Tori island looks just like a little campground, no town or anything there. Torri Island swing bridge was built in 1935. The bridge tender had to ride his bike to one end of the bridge put down the arm to stop traffic then ride his bike the across the bridge to the other end and close that arm. He then walks over to a big wheel that he sticks a rod in and had to walk around in circles in order to open the span.
This is a video of how they open the bridge. Click on the Link or the one below that pops up (the video will come up and you can play it, then you will have to come back to this tab: Bridge Opening
I think this place forgot about the 20th century. C-Life had to cut a path through the vegetation for us and Greek’s Folly followed.
We cut off of the rim route at mile marker 56 and crossed through the bottom part of the lake over to the lock.
Tom on Greek’s Folly can see a camera from 1000 feet away…
At the Port Mayaca lock, we Locked through with Sea Biscuit, another 44 foot DeFever 1999, one hull serial number from our boat. They were made at the same boatyard, at the same time. Really nice people on this boat. This boat has stainless steel railings, ours has teak. A lot less work…
That night, we stayed at the American Custom Yacht Marina. It is really more of a working boat yard than a marina. They only have six transient slips. On the dock we stayed at, the breaker kind of tripped off a few times so we had to watch our power usage. They only had room for two boats so Greek’s Folly went on further into Stewart and anchored for the night. Docktails on C-Life that night.
Robert’s drink of choice is what he calls Potato Juice. A close look at the bottle shows that this Vodka is made from potatoes.
The next morning, Robert gave us a lesson on how to get off the dock by ourselves. Remove all but 2 dock lines,. That means that you may have to add or move a line or two. In the end, you should have a bow line and a stern line only. This will help down the waterway. Thanks Robert and Kay.
Mile marker 240 (988 on the Intracoastal Waterway), is where the Intracoastal meets the Okeechobee Waterway. Norfolk is Mile Zero. We are finally on the East Coast ICW and are heading north. The next chapter of our adventure has now begun.