Chester B: Florida to Georgia

So we are finally ready to cast off and get going. We spent Thursday night (April 24th, 2015) on the boat, got up early and took the truck back to the house, closed everything up, unfolded our little bikes and bicycled back to the boat, about a 20 minute ride.

Cast off and went to the fuel dock to top off the tanks, 70 gallons, and get the holding tank pumped out. A very uneventful day south to our old hang out in Cayo Costa. Uneventful except for the new Garmin GPS packing it in! Motoring along and all of the sudden the screen went blank - perfect!

Up early and down the ICW to Ft.Myers and up the Caloosahatchee River toward the La Belle. The usual crowd of weekend warriors were out in full force.

Finally the crowd cleared out and we anchored just west of the first of many locks, Franklin lock.

Nice calm night and then through the lock at 8:00 and off up the river through two more locks to the large man-made Lake Okeechobee. The lake is about 25 mikes across; they basically drained part of the Everglades so the sugar farmers (US Sugar) had lots of water and land.

I continue to feel sorry for the 1% of Americans. Think of the upkeep and maintenance on these summer cottages! And what about paying for the fuel and crew for the boat? It's no damn wonder they need some tax breaks.

Saw some neat Cypress trees growing by the lake.

We decided to take to take the "rim route" around Lake Okeechobee rather than across it. Had a great little anchorage off to one side of the rim in a small pond. Happy birthday to my sweetheart, 39 again!

The next morning we went through the last manually operated swing bridge in Florida. This made the long run around the lake worth every minute. You call up buddy on the VHF, he rides to the bridge on his bicycle, grabs a pole about 10' long and starts unwinding the bridge.

Amazing.

Talked to him on the way by and he didn't seem out of breath or anything.Just another day. I'm really glad I got to see that. The last bridge in FL like that; I've never seen another one.

The last few miles across the lake were exposed and not nice but through the Port Myacca lock (down just a few feet) and under the 49.5' fixed railroad bridge which is a bane to sailboats.

Many (most) sailboats can't fit under that bridge and thus must either go around Florida through the Keys or get "tipped" (local guy drags barrels of water off your mast to tip the boat) and hopefully slide under. What can happen?

We had came up about 16' in three locks on the other side and then went down 14' in the St. Lucie lock; the final lock to Stuart. So that's five locks down and more than a hundred to go!

So we spent several days on a mooring-ball in Stuart replacing the GPS and out-living a nasty storm front with torrential rain and hail the size of walnuts! Some fun!

Then finally turned north and passed Vero Beach (affectionately known as Velcro Beach by many cruisers because you can't seem to leave).

And past Cocoa (not Cocoa Beach which on the Atlantic side) where we had spent several months on Zydeco years ago.

Up past the old Cape Canaveral. This bridge had us puzzled for awhile. Turned out one side was under construction.

And then the old buildings for the space shuttle appeared on the right.

Through the Haulover Canal, Nothing like a hard day of fishing.

And then there is the working guy. Got shrimp? Maybe crabs?

There are all sorts of boats doing the Great Loop. Here's one fellow who has just come down the seaway from Chicago. And he is having a great time! Nice Loop burgee!

Past a long stretch of houses with docks on the water.

And then we bypass Fort Matanzas. Construction started in 1740 as part of the Spanish effort to retain control of Florida. This is a sister fort to the larger Castillo de San Marcos fort in St. Augustine.

This is a very shoaled in pass as we saw a sailboat aground as he had drifted just slightly off course.

We arrived in St. Augustine mid-afternoon and picked up a mooring ball in the north field just across from the fort, Castillo de San Marcos. We had very strong NE winds and this was a very rough and uncomfortable stop. We decided to move to the lower field (got the last available mooring) to await the arrival of Josh, Darcy and Ian.

St. Augustine is the oldest permanent settlement in North America (excluding the local Indians who were there a long time before that!). It was established in 1565 by Don Pedro Menendez of Spain. Very nice old homes along the waterfront with cobble stone streets.

We moved the boat to a floating slip at the marina (that was fun in the current and wind) and spent the day walking through the town, having lunch at Harry's and exploring the fort.

The fort is really massive. At one point the British attacked St. Augustine (this seemed to happen on a regular basis) and the entire town, 1,300 residents and militia (200 or so) spent 50 days in the fort until eventually defeating the attackers.