Crossing Lake Okeechobee

 We left our slip in LaBelle FL and went towards Clewiston, Fl.  We went through several locks, they’re no longer scary and several bridge lifts too.  When we got to Clewiston, there was a bass fishing Tournament about to begin.  There were 180 boats registered and we were told they would be hell bent to start their day before sunrise.  That night there was a great band playing.....songs we knew the words to, loud, about 30’ from the bow of our boat......and they played full tilt until midnight.  We got up a little before dawn to watch the mass exodus.  It was very orderly, fairly quiet and quite a display of lights on the boats as they left and went single file through the lock that was there, and open,  thank goodness. We were the last of the Mohicans to leave the marina and followed our waypoints toward crossing Lake Okeechobee.  The weather forecast was favorable but unfortunately inaccurate. The wind was blowing 26 knots, making for a somewhat bumpy ride.  The lake did have a more normal water level which made our trip across a little less scary.  We stayed in the channel just as people had threatened us to do if we didn’t want to run aground in the shallow water.  As we went through the last lock and bridge we knew we still had about an hour to go before we reached Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart, Fl.  We thought the lake was shallow at 10-12’, the entrance into the marina got down to 4.7’ deep.  We hit bottom at 5’6”. But we didn’t hit bottom so we need to figure out how we dodged that bullet.  I did an excel spreadsheet and we have motored 762 miles so far, pretty good for newbies.

Bass fisherman exiting the marina.

They used to have a backyard, now they have a beach.

More hurricane damage.

Palm trees growing sideways.