May 15, 2010 - On the Okeechobee

OK, the big news is that we are on our way. First a sad note. On Saturday, May 9th I handed over ownership of my truck to "Paul" at 4:00 in the St Pete Marina parking lot. I finished my last visit to Home Depot at 3:59. I guess I'm happy that I sold it easily but I had it for 17 years and I loved it. However, it had gotten old and decrepit so to hell with it. Look out Linda!

We left St Pete Municipal Marina on Sunday morning around 10:00 and headed South. We went slow the first couple of days but on Wednesday the 12th we made close to 60 miles and were at the start of the Okechobee Waterway that goes across Florida. On the way South we went through miles and miles of off shore islands and shallow water. There were dolphins, lots of fish jumping and even a big turtle. I was surprised at how big the water was and how shallow. Much of it was several miles across and only 7 feet deep.

The picture above was in Sarasota right after we put the name on.

Linda has chastised me for (among other things) writing too much about boat stuff and not much emotional or human interest. I won't dwell on it but I think I have made it clear that this was much harder than we thought it would be. We new (intellectually) that we were buying a project but we didn't really understand how big a project. We spent day after day and week after week in the boat yard and still never got things to where we wanted them before we left St Pete. Even after leaving, we have had two REALLY windy anchorages where we stayed up most of the night fretting about our anchor holding. It is a new "55 pound Delta" and it seems to work great. I managed to back over our dingy line the first night and wrap it around our prop (you should use a floating line but we didn't have one so I used a regular line and then forgot about it when I was anchoring). I also pivoted our swim step under a dock trying to land in the wind and broke their plastic water line which was hanging down. We thought about sneaking away but did the honorable thing and radioed the dock master (we even stayed there). None of these are a big deal (and in fact I'll tell you an animated version of what happened when we see you again) but they all add up to emotional stress. We wish we had bought a smaller boat that wasn't such a big project. All of you know how tough Linda is and even she has approached despair over what we are doing. What's that saying about "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? We are getting really strong. But putting all this behind us, we are actually moving along and seeing lots of interesting country. Tomorrow will be a sunny day.

The is about 130 miles long and goes right across Florida from Fort Myers to Stuart.. There are fancy "ranchettes" along parts of it and total "marshy" shores along others (particularly the Lake itself). The water is pretty much fresh and comes out of Lake "O" flowing East and West. It is black as night and moves slowly.

The lake itself is huge - bigger than Lake Washington. The swampy edge of the lake abounds with Osprey, turkey buzzards, egrets, herons and other birds and we even saw a Manatee that was "locking" into the lake with us at Moore Haven, the Western entrance to the lake. The picture at right is the typical shore between the waterway and the actual lake. I'm sure there are lots of creatures lurking back in the brush including lions and tigers er, I mean alligators and old bass fisherman.

This is a picture of one of our new friends that we met at a little marina called "Jack's Marine". They also had a dog pack and chickens (we got some fresh eggs!) The people were really nice and drove me into the town of Olga to the Ace

hardware store to get a plumbing fitting (the old one cracked - how about that?).

Last night we stayed in a marina along the Waterway at a town called "Indian Town"and got a courtesy ride to eat at the Italian restaurant. It was really excellent and we had a chance sneak over to the IGA to get a few groceries before our ride back to the boat. Very nice!

It is still hot (mid 80's to around 90 for a high) and there are lots of bugs, many of which fly in pairs. They are appropriately called "love bugs". They don't bite but they are annoying in their multitudes. We plan on getting to Stuart/Fort Pierce on the East coast today and will stay there for a few days and then head North.

Take care and more on June 1st or sooner.

Miss you all.

Tod and Linda