Day 63 -east across Florida -first day

Almost as planned, we left the dock at Legacy Harbor at the “crack” of 8:35 am just 5 minutes late, but since we really do not have a schedule, we actually were departing exactly on time as usual. Our friends, Bonnie and Bob, sent the next two pictures of our departure, taken from their balcony overlooking the marina. I guess that they were making sure that we left?

I especially like the first one since it looks like I did a pretty good job of pulling out of the slip and immediately beginning my turn, all without hitting anything. It must be one of those boating things that when you don't have an audience you do a really good job.  In all sincerity, we really did have a great time with Bonnie and Bob.

Our trip today was east, up the Caloosahatchee River and overall, we are following the Okeechobee Waterway across Florida to near Stuart on the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

Today we went through 2 locks, one swing bridge that had to open, under 6 bridges and after 56 miles, we ended up about a mile short of Lake Okeechobee. The third picture is the Franklin Lock where we went up about a foot. Near the end of the day we went through the Ortona Lock where we went up about 7 feet. Both locks had lines hanging down the sides for us to hold on to during the lift. That's the good news, but the bad news is that the ends of the ropes that hang down into the water are REALLY yucky!

We are now docked at the city dock in Moore Haven, and the first news that we got was that the restaurant across the street is closed and the Mexican restaurant a few blocks away is closed for the summer...  So, we got on the electric scooters and headed for an Italian "restaurant" about 8 blocks away, and it was open. 

Along the waterway today we passed one area with a lot of greenhouses, fields with grazing cattle, llamas, burrows and horses...

I did see one alligator, but we can expect to see a lot more. The last bit of nature was a swallow tailed kite that the Admiral managed to catch a picture of...

So, we are hoping to cross the lake tomorrow. The good news is that the water level is way up, but the bad news is that means that it will still only be about 10 feet deep for most of the trip.  Such shallow water can get quite nasty waves in a short time in bad weather so we will be watching the weather reports carefully. Although we are only about a mile from Lake Okeechobee, we have to travel nearly 14 miles in an artificial canal (ditch?) to get to a point where we can actually enter the lake to go across... Sounds crazy, but... Once we actually get out in the lake we have only about 26 miles to get across it.