A day in the icw

We were able to go to the farmers market and I have more basil on board than should be legal. Yum! Wishing I could make a tomato basil pie. That would be delish!

The sailing today was fantastic. 33 miles so far and we only ran the motor for less than an hour.
We have seen so many bald eagles and turtles.  A ray jumped out of the water right next to us. We are close to the Sebastian Inlet and the day has been wonderful great gusts of wind and partly cloudy and warm. Thinking about swimming tonight!

Anne

Ft Pierce

We consistently receive excellent service at the Ft. Pierce City Marina and make it one of our regular stops. 
Alan and Marcia Wagner drove over from Okeechobee to meet us for dinner and celebrate their wedding anniversary.  We had a delicious dinner at Cobbs Landing.  It was wonderful to be able to share the evening with good friends.

In the morning Anne and I perused the weekly, local farmers market along the water front.  We were impressed by the number of vendors and the quality of wares.  The experience inspired us to seek out more opportunities to visit local markets along our trip up to NC.   Hopefully we can time our stops in other towns with weekend markets.

Finally a bit of wind in our sails

An ebbing tide assisted us along our final leg of the Okeechobee Waterway.  Turning north into the ICW at the crossroads brought the brisk 18+ winds around to our stern.  After 3 days of motoring it felt good to raise some cloth. 

During the 18NM run to Ft. Pierce we average over 5.8 knots. 

Back to salt water and sea level.

Last night Rick and Cynthia from SV Reverie joined us for dinner on C'est la Vie.  We enjoyed their company and had fun sharing boat stories. 

The Park Service maintains a campground at St Lucie Lock with a few first come first serve boat slips.  $24/night for the slip, potable water, 30 amp power, and showers is a good deal.

Due to low water levels in the lake, the lock is only running 3 times a day - 07, 13, & 19.  So the morning came early on C'est la Vie.  Occasional showers escorted the dawn and we were the only vessel seeking  to lock through in the morning.

Our elevation dropped 11 feet in the lock as we returned to salt water and sea level on the east coast of Florida.

Whew that was close

We just passed under the infamous guillotine railroad bridge that limits the height of vessels transiting the Okeechobee Waterway to 50 feet.  C'est la Vie's mast is 49 feet off the water.  So we always cringe when passing this way.

With the guillotine astern our next destination is Indiantown Marina for a quick fuel stop.

Crossing Lake Okeechobee

We exited the rim canal at Clewiston and entered the long, exposed, and narrow channel leading out actross a shallow area known as rocky reef.  Due to Spartan rain fall this winter the lake is at a record low level for this time of year.  On average we were.o serving depths 1 to 2 feet less the charted values.  The minimum depth we observed in the channel was 5 feet.  Once again we are please to draw less than 4 feet.

Once clear of rocky reef we set a waypoint for Port Mayaca and let Otto take the helm.  Unfortunately 12 knots of wind directly on our bow limited our options to mooring.

Doorway to Lake Okeechobee

We started our day by transiting the Moore Haven lock in Lake Okeechobee's rim canal.  The rim canal encircles the lake along Roosevelt Dike with occasional access points to the lake.
This morning we will travel southward in the canal to Clewiston then cross the lake to Port Mayaca Lock along the lakes eastern shore. 

One night in Moore Haven

Our arrival in Moore Haven was marked by a surprising first... Anne docked C'est la Vie while I handled the lines.  She did an exceptional job on the helm and settled CestlaVie gently along the fixed dock pictured above.  Another pleasant surprise was a visit from Al Wagner, Dan Hunt, and their friend Kale.  The three were running shuttle for a trip to move Kale's Cabo Rico 38 down to Labelle Marina.  We had a nice time sharing stories and catching up.

We are planning on an early start in the morning as we want to arrive at the Park Service package upstream of the St. Luice lock, 70 miles east, tomorrow evening.  Our friends aboard SV-Reverie are transiting the waterway westward and we plan to meet up tomorrow night.

Four draw bridges and two locks astern

We just cleared the Ortona Lock.  18 miles to Moore Haven and we are done for the day. 

A good morning for scones

Oh, after a night of being lulled to sleep by the whipoorwills and a small rain shower.  We awoke to a cool morning. Ah ha I thought I will be able to bake something. Out of the freezer came the blueberries and into the batter. It' time for scones! They were so good out of the oven and now we will have some maybe for tomorrow!

One lock and one bridge astern

We have put the Wilson Pigott bridge and Franklin Lock astern.   We got lucky with the lock and arrived promptly for the 09:00 opening simply by chance.  The next opening is noon.  Guess we just made a withdrawal from our karma bank.  We did check with the lock master and all the other inland locks run "on demand".  The outer locks Franklin on the west and St. Luice on the east are currently running on a three hour (06, 09, 12, 15,18) schedule.

Eastward across Florida

Anchors aweigh and full steam ahead.  We will be spending the entire day today headed east up the Calusahatchee River through central Florida.  Goodbye condos and hello cattle.  We hope to make Moore Haven along the western edge of Lake Okeechobee by this evening.  Before us is sixty miles of river/canal, four drawbridge, and two locks.  Here we go!

Great sailing in the Gulf

Our leap from Naples to Ft. Myers passed in record time as we averaged over 6 knots on a broad reach with Otto at the helm.

Short hop to Naples

We made a short hop from Marco Island to Naples on Monday.  The image included is of C'est la Vie on a mooring ball at Naples City Marina.