Okeechobee Waterway - Locks, Alligators, Mosquitos, but NO pythons!!

We left Bimini Basin in Cape Coral and motored up the Caloosahatchee River past Fort Myers and headed across the state of Florida on a water highway (the Okeechobee Waterway). We were pleasantly surprised to find that the waterway was not a manmade canal or ditch as expected but a wide river with beautiful natural foliage and beautiful expensive homes on the sides of the river. Very scenic!

The first day we went through our first lock (Franklin Lock). It was a good one to start with as the "lift" was only a couple of feet. We entered the lock, the gates behind us closed, we grabbed ropes fore and aft that were thrown to us by the lockmaster and held ourselves against the concrete wall of the lock. The lockmaster opened the lock gates on the "uphill" side of the lock and water started pouring in through the gap in the gates. Not too impressive or scary as this was one of the locks with not much difference in water levels. THAT was to come in later locks!!! So the lock fills up about 2 feet and then he opens the front gates and out we go into the waterway again.

Here is a photo of Linda tending the bow line inside the lock. The front gates are visible ahead.



Here is a photo of the water pouring in through the gap in the gates.



Everything went very well, not as scary as we expected but I was very anxious as we had never done a lock before! How big is the lock? Well, it is 50 feet wide by 250 feet long. We felt very small inside as it is made for large barges and tugboats. It would take 45 Enchantresses to fill it! (9 Enchantresses end to end and 5 rows of 9 across!).

We tried to tie to some large pilings made for barges so that we could stop and spend the night as there were no places to anchor. It was not a good situation so I decided we needed to go another 18 miles up to LaBelle for the night. After trying a "Mediterranean Mooring" with the anchor out in the river and tying stern to the city dock (a derelict dock!!), I again decided it was not a suitable place to spend the night with large wakes from power boats so we went to a slip at a county park and spent the night.

While at the dock we saw our first alligator!! It was just a puppy, only about 4 feet long, very cute, looking at us with those adorable big cute eyes! Linda does not agree with any of the foregoing description of the alligator!!!!

The next day we headed up the river, got gas and water at a marina, and went through two more locks that lifted us up another 5 feet and then 7 feet. At the last lock one of the front gates would not work so they only opened one side. This only gave us an opening of 25 feet or about 6 feet on either side of the boat but it looked like 6 INCHES!!

We were now at the level of Lake Okeechobee, 14 feet or so above sea level. It's a wonder I didn't get a nosebleed from the elevation! We anchored in a canal for the night. Holding ground for the anchor was mud the consistency of chocolate pudding BEFORE it is put in the refrigerator so I was worried about the anchor dragging but forturnately it was a calm night so we had no problem. We saw our second alligator swimming in the canal, this time a bigger fellow, about 10 feet or so!! AND lots of mosquitos! We used our screens but a few got in the cabin so we were "on the hunt" all evening with the fly swatter to do them in before we went to bed!!

The next morning we got up early and put on "Redneck Cologne" (AKA Deep Woods Off!) so that we could get underway without being eaten alive by the mosquitos. We seldom have to use the "Redneck Cologne" as we anchor out far enough that mosquitos don't bother us or there is good mosquito control in place in the parts of Florida where we anchor. We motored 13 miles around the rim of Lake Okeechobee in a canal and then headed across the lake. It is a 25 mile crossing of the lake so it took about 4 hours to get across. It was fortunately glassy calm as the shallow lake can get very rough in high winds. Lake Okeechobee is the largest freshwater lake in the U.S. other than, of course, the Great Lakes. We got across with the only problem being swarms of May flies (in OCTOBER!).

We went through the Mayaca Lock and then had to go under the Mayaca Railroad Lift Bridge which is only 49 feet high. Our mast with the antenna is about 39 feet above the water. So "theoretically" we had 10 feet of clearance. Looking at it you could not convince us that was true so we held our breath and went under it! Whew, no problem.

Here are photos of the bridge and our mast going under it!





Since again there were no suitable places to anchor we had to go on to Indiantown and take a slip at a marina. We don't like marinas for a number of reasons, one of which is BUGS! Sure enough the next morning we had ants streaming up one of the docklines and COCKROACHES in the cockpit. Bring out the bug spray and get underway as quickly as possible!!!!

We then had to go through the St. Lucie Lock which had a 14 foot drop!!! We unfortunately had to wait over an hour for the lock to open as a contractor was working on it. We got into the lock with a very large power yacht right behind us. The lockmaster was very gentle with us, only opening the front gate less than a foot so that the level of the water dropped slowly and there was not a lot of turbulence. So we survived our last lock and were then back down to sea level and headed back to SALT WATER!!! Yeah!!!

We took a mooring at Stuart and are spending two days resting up, doing laundry, getting groceries, etc. Tomorrow we head south down the Intracoastal Waterway towards Fort Lauderdale and Miami and on to the Keys.

While we found the Okeechobee Waterway to be very scenic and nicer than we thought it would be, we felt "confined" and "trapped" (what if a lock had the gates break, which happens, and we would be stuck inland for who knows how long!?). We didn't like the lack of suitable places to anchor resulting in much longer days than we like to do, too many bugs, and muddy water. We were both glad to "get it over with" and get back to the coast and salt water! It was a different experience but not something we would want to do again real soon.

So the locks were not as bad as we expected, most of the trip was very scenic and beautiful, we DID see alligators and Linda was constantly on "alligator watch" instead of "dolphin watch", the mosquitos and May flies were a nuisance, BUT there were no 20 foot PYTHONS or other snakes seen.

We are back in our element in salt water and headed back "home" to the Keys for the winter.