Stuart to Fort Myers, FL, January 25-28, 2012



Colleen's favorite bird.  He fished every day near our boat in Vero Beach

We've had an event filled four days as we traveled from Vero Beach to Stuart last Wednesday, then made our three-day trip across Florida.  Tonight we're comfortably settled in Fort Myers and plan to stay here for a month.

Our first leg of the journey to the west coast of Florida started with a trip south from Vero Beach to Stuart.  We started just after 7AM Wednesday and arrived in Stuart about 3PM after leaving the Intracoastal Waterway and entering the St. Lucie River that leads to Lake Okeechobee. We started out towing the dinghy but the winds were very strong and the water quite rough.  So we had to stop halfway  to raise the dinghy onto our swim platform on the lift system. 

Tug we met on the ICW

In Stuart we rented a mooring ball in the bay for one night - $15 + tax.  We dinghied into the Sunset Bay Marina and walked the shops of "old Stuart" for a couple hours.  After that we had dinner at the marina restaurant and were pleasantly surprised with great meals on the patio while watching the sunset.  We received a text from our friends, Barbara and Dave, who, upon our recommendation that they must see Fernandina,  were looking at the same sunset from the Fernandina waterfront.  We wanted to stay on the patio to hear the scheduled musical entertainment but we were both tired and headed back to the boat just minutes before rains came in.  We were glad that we left the patio.  Note:  this is the first rain we have had in seven plus weeks on the boat.

The sunset view from the patio of the Sailor's Return Restaurant in Stuart where we had a delicious meal.

On Thursday we left Stuart traveling south and then southwest on the St. Lucie River toward Lk. Okeechobee.   In order to reach the Lake you must travel through five locks that are used to control the lake water level and those of the rivers that feed into it.  It's 39 miles from Stuart to Port Mayaca at the entrance to Lk. Okeechobee.   We tied to the dolphins just before the Port Mayaca lock for Thursday night.  That was tricky and too hard to describe.  Dolphins (not mammals or fish) are sets of six creosoted telephone poles stuck into the river bottom like a tepee, cabled together, and sticking 12 feet above water level.  Sorry - no photo.  They are meant for tying up big barges for the night..  The next day Wayne got to clean creosote from the boat and the rubber fender that we put between us and the dolphins to cushion our tie-up.

This trip across the state was new for both of us.  While we lived in Florida, we boated on many of its rivers and lakes and made lots of trips on both the east and west coasts of the state.  We had never been across Lake Okeechobee.  This natural lake is the second largest in the entire US, 37 miles long and 30 miles wide.  It has been modified several times since 1939 with a 13 foot high dyke around its perimeter for hurricane and flood protection, not to mention agricultural production.   Its average depth is only ten feet, which makes for very rough water when the winds pick up as they often do in this area.  You cannot see across from one side to the other.  On the chart below, our route on the lake is the lower red line.

Info on the OWW

We enter the lock, the back gates close, we hold tight to ropes on the side and wait for the water to raise or lower us to the level of the river on the other side.  Then the front gates open and we can proceed.  The longest drop we had was thirteen feet.

Many of the locks have RV parks on the grounds.  Sometimes we provide spectator sport for the residents as we navigate the lock system.

This is the view of Lake Okeechobee as you first enter it from the St. Lucie River on the east.

We proceeded through the Port Mayaca lock just after 7 on Friday morning and entered the lake.  We had decided to travel via the southern rim route, 50 miles of well-marked waterway that promised great scenery that we had never before seen.  The direct route straight across the lake is only 39 miles.   

With bad storms predicted we were glad that we had already made our decision as the rim route is protected most of the way by marsh on the lake side and a 13 foot dyke on the shore side.  However, our first ten miles or so was in unprotected waters and we put the boat on plane to outrun the oncoming storm , increasing our speed to a rollicking 16-and-a-half miles an hour.  As it turned out, we just made the shelter of the marshes as the storm came overhead.  We stopped and anchored to ride out the storm but it went right over us and never blew any harder or dropped any rain. 

We braced for the worst weather of our travels. These black clouds sat over us for several hours. We could see them dropping rain all around but it never hit us.

The rest of the day was very windy as we pushed on to Moore Haven lock on the west side of the lake.


Saturday, we shoved off for Ft. Myers on Florida's west coast.  At Moore Haven we were now on the Caloosahatchee River and out of the lake.  We needed to go another 58 miles to reach Fort Myers.  The day became more windy as we travelled and we were wind worn upon arrival at the Fort Myers City Marina where we will stay for the next month.

We saw thousands of birds, vast fields of marshland, several alligators, numerous horses, orange groves, sugar cane fields, and cattle.   The towns along the way are few and far between and we both enjoyed seeing nature at its rawest.

That is an alligator.  He casually cruised along beside the boat as we waited for one of the locks to open.

The boat performed beautifully every day and Wayne and Colleen performed pretty well too. 

Some Travel Photos:

Orange groves on the river

Captain Colleen

Caloosahatchee River Bank

Sugar Cane - King of the Okeechobee crops

More of the charts that we use

Horse ranch on the Caloosahatchee River

Nice mansion in Stuart

Approaching a lock