November 10, Wednesday:
At left: Ponce De Leon guarding the Fountain of Youth (or so he hoped, although it didn't work for him, but lots of folks are still trying to see if it will work for them)
Today was our chance to see Lake Okeechobee. We weighed anchor at 7:45 and had to lock thru up a couple of feet to the lake level. We had anchored bow and stern just past the old railroad bridge in a wide spot in the canal. Once out in the lake we were able to raise the main and jib and motor sail in 10 knots of north west wind. The lake is pretty big with an horizon in most directions, but mostly only 10 feet deep. It was 25 miles across to the channel that cuts thru the very shallow west side of the lake. Once we were on the west side we had to follow a canal dug along the shore for about 10 miles to the Morehaven lock. It was in this section we saw quite a few alligators. Most were hanging around with their eyes and noses above water and nothing else. They typically submerged as we motored past. We did see a five footer sunning himself on the bank.
The Morehaven lock dropped us only a few inches and went very quick. We motored the last leg to LaBelle trying to find some fuel along the way. This section does not support many marinas. The first was an RV park on the canal in Morehaven which was out of business, the next was only open from 9 to 1 and then we got to one that reportedly had diesel and they were cleaning the tanks. The next one up would fuel you up from a truck. but would not bother with a 30 gallon sale for us. Fortunately we had filled up in Ft. Pierce and had 5 gallons stored on deck so we weren't desperate. The power boat we locked thru with had to dock in Morehaven to wait for fuel the next day.
LaBelle is in the interior of Florida and is very agricultural. The city dock was free, but required you to do what is called a med moor. This means dropping an anchor 100 feet or so in front of where you want to be docked stern to, and backing in. Then when you tie up on the dock you have to tension the anchor line to keep you just off the dock but able to jump off the stern to go ashore. Boats in the med that do this often have a boarding plank to make it a little less hairy disembarking.
Jason found us a nice restaurant on his Iphone only a few blocks away and we had some local fresh fish that was fantastic.
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