It looks like we are cruising across land. We are in the Okeechobee Waterway part of the Intracoastal. All my life I have called it the Intercoastal and today, I realize I’ve always pronounced it wrong. John admits that he has too so I asked him if he’d rather have intercourse or intracourse 😂🤭.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracoastal_Waterway

We spent Tuesday night in Labelle and 4-17-19 we are headed to Roland Martin’s fish camp outside of Lake Okeechobee. For the first 20 or so miles of this waterway, we saw houses and boats. Today, we’ve seen mostly pastures and a couple of orange groves and lots of sugar cane. It’s cool up on the fly bridge but the sunshine is sometimes intense. We look like aliens!

There are 3 locks on the way to Lake Okeechobee and 2 locks to get to the east side of Florida. These either lift or lower your boat to the water on the other side of the lock gate. When you get the green light to enter, one parks the boat against the wall and hangs onto the lines of the side as the opposite gate opens either to let water rush in or rush out depending on if the boat needs to be raised or lowered. This requires about 20 straight minutes of muscle power to keep the boat next to the wall. Notice the watermarks on the wall. The boat will be that high when finished.

(This is a screenshot, not a video)

We spent the night at Roland Martin’s fish camp with the occasional alligator swimming by and a squawking bird that woke us up all through the night. What we should have realized is that the bird was telling us,

Beware, Beware…..

‘Cause the next morning we started across the black waters of Lake Okeechobee knowing it was only 4-5 feet for most of the crossing. The channel on this big lake is often narrow and it was windy so when John was setting the Autocruise we drifted out of the channel and over into water less than 3 foot and

BLAM!

our propellers hit limestone and we were wounded. We limped across the lake at about 5 knots because the boat was vibrating so hard. We made it to the American Boat yard and they let us spend the night in hopes that they would have time on Friday to haul us out. This is a great place as they hauled us out, changed the props and had us on our way for $800! John said that Shalimar marina charges $1800 just for the haul out!

One of my favorite marinas was only 5 miles away and we arrived at Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart FL about an hour before some torrential rains. It is indeed Good Friday. We were blessed and wishing you a Happy Easter.

We will leave on Monday to head north…..great adventures and unknown parts to Happy Ours.

We left Clearwater Marina for parts unknown. Two years ago when we went to the Bahamas, we went out into the Gulf to travel since it is calm that far south. Tampa Bay is huge and it was windy. We dodged some HUGE ships. Tampa Bay is highly used by commercial freighters. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is beautiful and most unique.



We anchored out in Bradenton and had a good evening until the floating grass started clogging the generator. So all night long, every 30 minutes, John had to clear out filters or reset the generator when the battery levels started alarming.



I can tell you though that tomorrow’s entry more than makes up for it. Our trip to Venice Beach as I write, is very beautiful!

I’ve had extreme issues with connectivity today so I’ve cut out the short videos. One was a railroad track that was a swinging trestle. We also had to wait for a couple of draw bridges to pass under. The inter coastal here is narrow and loaded with beautiful homes and mobile home communities on the water. The color of the water is gorgeous but interestingly not as clear as Destin.

We traveled to Venice and the beach has so many tiny shells and shark teeth can be found that are petrified. The sand is a different color! I had a video of John sitting on the beach UNDER the tree shade but can’t send it. So neat to stay cool at the beach.

We stayed at a marina called the Crow’s Nest. The water passage to the left is a pass to the Gulf. It seems that the Gulf is much calmer down further south. There were lots of pontoon boats coming in from the Gulf. There were lots of tiny uninhabited islands with boaters enjoying the day. No big development here!



 

On a windy day, we crossed Charlotte Harbor and Pine Island Sound which was like Choctawhatchee Bay with greener water. Lots of big sports fishing boats have passed us causing everything to rock and roll. One had 4 engines of 400 HP….like 1600 horses running by causing us to choke on their dust 😂. It’s got to be much harder for all the sailboats as no one seems to show boat etiquette of slowing down before passing. It must the custom here in south FL. We did pass up an historical marker. Jimmy Buffett wrote Cheese Burger in Paradise on Cabbage Key in a food shack.

The entrance into into the marina was very shallow as the depth finder said 3 ft. We draw 3.5 so I’m guessing our props were in the sand!   

Sanibel Island is known for all the shells on the beach  the water is very cloudy with broken coral and shells.  

We walked around to the end of the beach and found the Sanibel Lighthouse.  Can you imagine climbing to the top with 5 gallons of kerosene every day? 

The island is covered in beautiful shady trees!  

Sanibel Island was a great place to visi