Phase One of our Great Loop Adventure is complete. The goal was to simply travel from our home port on the west coast of Florida to a corresponding marina on the east coast of Florida. Our plan was to see how it went and make a decision on how to proceed once we completed this portion of the trip. I can say that phase one was a big success. We both really enjoyed the trip and we learned a lot,…
On the final day of our mad dash around Florida, we eased out of Melbourne Harbor Marina at 6:30am and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise as we continued north. Today we took advantage of the boat’s ability to cruise at a faster speed. We spent several hours cruising along at 14 knots. The fuel economy is the same as when the boat is running at about 9 knots because at the faster speed the boat is planing on top of the…
We spent the night at Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart. This was maybe the second fanciest Marina we have stayed at so far, and definitely the most pricey. Once again we found ourselves a bit intimidated by all the big and fancy boats, but as it turns out the Marina is within walking distance to downtown Stuart, and there is a nice waterfront walking trail that we took advantage of. We planned a long trip for the day, so we…
Lake Okeechobee is the big lake in the lower part of Florida. According to Wikipedia it is the 10th largest freshwater lake in the U.S. But it is also pretty shallow. So we had to follow a channel when crossing through the middle of the lake. The crossing was 26 miles from where we entered the lake at Clewiston, to where we exited the lake at Port Mayaca. We had two more locks to contend with. These lowered us back…
We departed the campground early in the morning to hopefully avoid the afternoon thunderstorms. The waterway was smooth as glass as we eased back into the channel. We did see quite a few gators, and possibly one manatee, although since we didn’t get a picture it can’t be confirmed. We saw plenty of interesting sights. A wide variety of boat traffic was present on the waterway and we had to avoid one barge and tug. Today was a big day…
Today’s challenge was to traverse our first lock. The Okeechobee waterway has five locks in all. These raise and lower our boat as we move across the state to the east coast. The first lock is W.P. Franklin, and is only 12 miles or so from Ft. Myers, so the first task was to put Ft Myers to our rudder and head east into the heart of Florida. This lock only raises us by about 1.5 feet, but it is…
When we stopped at Legacy Harbor Marina in Ft. Myers we were pleasantly surprised. It is clean and neat and within walking distance of a grocery store and the downtown area. We had initially planned to only stay one night, but after I realized that there was a coal fired pizza place in town I decided we would spend one extra night. We also took advantage of the laundry and did a pump out and water refill.
To avoid the afternoon storms typical of Florida this time of year, we got another early start. Today’s goal was 37 miles away, which doesn’t seem like much until you consider that we are traveling at 8 miles per hour. So that makes it about a five hour trip after we slow down for the manatee areas. Upon leaving Boca Grande we found ourselves in Pine Island Sound. The currents are different than normal, and the water can apparently get…
Today we traveled from Sarasota to Boca Grande. Along the ICW in this area are miles and miles of slow speed manatee protection zones. I can’t say for certain if we saw a manatee, but we did see lots of pelicans. And channel markers. And pelicans on channel markers. This is a channel marker. The gold square indicates it is an Intracoastal Waterway channel marker. We try to keep the green ones on the starboard side of the boat. We…
Our year has been pretty hectic up to this point, so our expected departure date has been delayed by about two months, but the day has finally arrived. We left our home in Orlando in a rental car and drove to the marina, which is about two hours away. We packed the boat, picked up groceries and made some last-minute repairs. We then returned the rental car and rode our bikes back to the boat, where we finally attached our…