Mid-Florida: Crossing over to the Atlantic Ocean

Here we are in Mid-Florida, travelling the waterway with lots of birds and wildlife, even found some alligators, cows and horses.

The alligators didn't like the boat, so they quickly submerged and swam away when they felt our wake.  Even so, we saw about 5 or 6 of them.  It was a cloudy, cooler day or we would have seen more.

Pretty horses!

Also saw several cows.  They looked just like Iowa cows but I think they speak Spanish.

Airing out his feathers, I guess...

The High Rise Condos by our marina in Ft. Myers

 

Don in the Dinghy..

Theresa doing dishes (Don does most of the drying)

I want a boat with a built in dishwasher.

Reading and Relaxing by the pool

Or on the patio...

 

When we left Ft. Meyers we traveled east on the Okeechobee Waterway to Lake Okeechobee, across the lake to the St Lucie Canel which comes out on the Atlantic side of Florida at Stuart. This inland canal and lake system allows boats to cross Florida from the Gulf Of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean without having to go around the southern tip of the state.  This route goes thru suger cane country. Some of the fields were being burned off and we got sugar cane ashes all over the boat.

We currently are at Indian Town Marina on the St Lucie Canal about 10 miles from the ocean. 

This is a lock on the Okeechobee Waterway System - they are so small compared to the locks we had been through on the Mississippi/Tennessee Rivers.  In 2 of them here, they just rose about a foot, so to raise the water level they just slowly opened the gates on the other side.

 (That was something new to us.) 

It reminded me though, of all the creaking & cracking, bumping & knocking, water rushing in and trickling, the eirie sounds of the bigger locks.  It made me think it would be good sound effects for a Harry Potter movie.  

Tomorrow we plan to go on to Stuart, Florida and check out the east coast and eventually explore some of the the Atlantic Ocean.

Until next week.....Blessings to all!