Woke up early this morning to dark skies and sprinkling rain. We tossed off our lines about 8:20 am to head for River Forest Yachting Center in Moore Haven, Florida which is our first stop before crossing Lake O.  It turned out to be a beautiful travel day with sunshine and clear blue skies and remained that way for the whole trip. We are traveling on the Caloosahatchee River, so the water is brownish, but our view upon leaving Ft. Myers was of beautiful big waterfront homes with big screened in pools and porches. Wonder why (? Ha ha). The last quarter of the trip turned into a lot of nothing but trees, pretty but boring.  

Our journey was uneventful although it took longer than anticipated because of locks and bridges. On this leg there were two railroad bridges, of the seven bridges, that had to be opened for us plus two locks to traverse. In the first lock we were one of eleven boats. There was a boat a bit larger than Scout and nine small boats traveling together. It was pretty interesting. Once in the lock we only went up a foot in elevation but the whole process took about 45 minutes.

Once we exited the lock the nine small boats shot by us and left us in their wake. About 25 miles later we passed them tied up at a lovely park and saw the occupants having a picnic – looked like they were having a blast. Our next lock experience included only one other boat and we lifted about ten feet in elevation. We didn’t need the big balls for either of these locks, but gloves were definitely needed on the second one. The lines were pretty darn yucky and required a tight hold because of the strong turbulence. Oh, they require engines be turned off once tied off. This seems a bit unusual, based on our limited experience, but we think it’s because they don’t want the lock tenders exposed to the chemicals from running engines. We didn’t see any alligators or Manatees locking through with us.

We arrived at River Forest Yachting Center a little after 2:00 pm. It’s a small, lovely place with a beautiful green lawn perfect for the doggies and they loved it. Upon checking in we were told that the water level where we are going is only about 3.2 feet. About six boats have grounded and one, a 65 foot boat, came back here to repair their damaged prop. Oops…… we may be here longer than we anticipated. It is lovely BUT there is absolutely NOTHING around here. Will keep you posted.