Return to Harbour Isle Marina, Fort Pierce, FL

3/6/2017

With a short trip today, as compared to the rest of the days on the Okeechobee Waterway, we spent a while this morning taking care of miscellaneous tasks on the boat before departure. Since the marina, River Forest East, was not open for business on Sunday when we came in, Clark’s first order of business was to visit the marina office to pay for our stay.

Clark searched multiple times last night for the key to the restroom that was supposed to be waiting for us. He never found it. When he checked in, he learned that an over-diligent security guard had collected the key on his rounds. Yesterday, when he needed the key, he did not have it. Today, since he got a key, we did not need it because the restroom door was left ajar.

As I strolled up, key in hand, to use the marina head, a woman named Jan stopped me and asked if we planned to have work done on our boat or if we were hiding from the winds. "Neither", I replied. "We just stopped for one night and plan to move on today."  Jan and her husband are loopers from Iowa on a boat named Follow That Dream. What a great name for a looper boat!

Jan and I talked for a while and agreed to meet later to exchange boat cards. As we chatted, I mentioned that I ran out of bread, so I had a dilemma on lunch planning. She offered me some of her boat’s stores. When I walked over with my boat card in hand, she gave me half a loaf of bread to keep us going until we get to Vero Beach and can do some food shopping. So generous of her! We may meet up again as they plan to stop in Vero Beach while we are there.

As I walked back to my boat, I got a chuckle out of a sign posted on the marina grounds.

Marina / Boater Humor

With all his morning chores completed, Clark was anxious to get moving. We still had one more lock to complete, Port St. Lucie, before we could be done with the Okeechobee. Happily, this lock is the last one I expect to see for quite some time.  To my knowledge, our travel plans up the east coast do not include any waters with locks on them. Unlike when we completed the Great Loop, we will not travel through the Dismal Swamp, which does have locks, as it is currently closed to boat traffic.

As I waited for the gates of the Port St. Lucie lock to open, I tried to calculate how many locks I have navigated during my various boating excursions.  On our first boat, C-house, we traveled through 25 locks (round trip) in 1993 to explore the Champlain Canal. On Sea Moss, we traveled the Erie Canal in 2005 as far as Cayuga Lake to visit our son Jeff at Cornell University adding over 50 more locks (round trip) to the tally. On that trip, we also navigated the 14 locks (up and back) on the Oswego Canal.

In 2012, also on Sea Moss, we did the Triangle Cruise through Canada where we counted 101 locks to complete the trip. On the Great Loop (2015-2016), we added 104 locks to the list. Now this year, with our passage east-to-west and then west-to-east across the Okeechobee Waterway, we added 13 more locks to the list. So, all told, Clark and I have navigated approximately 300 locks together! Funny thing is though … they never lose their intimidation factor! Anything can happen in a lock especially on days like we have had this week with high winds.

We traveled 12.5 feet down on our ride in the Port St. Lucie lock. At least in this lock they supplied enough line to comfortably hold the boat near the lock wall. In the other locks of the Okeechobee, where the rise or drop is a short distance, they supplied ridiculously short lines. For the Port Mayaca Lock, for example, I ended up down on my hands and knees on the bow, so I could grasp the few inches of line available to hold the boat in the wind.

Fortunately, the trip through the lock occurred almost immediately after leaving the marina. Happy to get that out of the way, I could then relax for the rest of the trip without worrying over lines, fenders, boat hooks, and work gloves. After locking through, I stowed all this paraphernalia away neatly for the remainder of today’s voyage. 

With only 25 or so miles to go to get to our destination for tonight, it felt like a "walk in the park". We left late morning and arrived at the marina around 4:30. Even with somewhat reduced wind speeds today, depending on our direction of travel, we got some spray from the waves. Partway through our trip, it rained. We found it hard to tell the difference except one was salt water and the other was not.

Some of the sights seen along the way to Fort Pierce are shown below.

Sign reads "Riverland"

Sailboat convention?

Failed Railroad Bridge picture (taken by Evelyn)

Crazy Windsurfer

Since the Harbour Isle Marina docks are surrounded by buildings, we thought that the wind would die down as we approached the slips. Unfortunately, this was not the case and docking was a definite challenge. Thankfully, two people came out to grab lines to help pull us in and tie us up to the dock. On our own it would have been a great accomplishment, but I would rather have the help.

As we struggled to get ourselves situated at the dock, Paul, who worked at Krogen Express and helped us through the purchase of Sunset Delight, stopped by, helped us tie up, and then talked with Clark about our experiences with the boat thus far. Clark had a lot to say. For a while I listened in on their conversation, but then my son, Chris, called and I left them to have a nice chat with him instead.

I am looking forward to another shorter day tomorrow and then a week-long stay in Vero Beach, FL before we need to move the boat again.