Indiantown Marina is at the end of a dead end road. Every evening the kids and I would grab the scooters and longboard and head half a mile up the road to this empty parking lot to just goof around on some smooth pavement. If you don’t think kids keep you young, you should see me shred the turns on the skateboard. I was a terrible skater as a kid—and have the scars to prove it—but I’m really digging the longboard now that I’m all grown up.
Florida waters cont’d. We never did figure out which boat’s bilge was spitting this out every couple days, but we did let the marina know, so hopefully they’ll figure it out. There are only about twelve slips here so it shouldn’t be too difficult. I imagine the inside of that boat smells pretty horrible.
Still feeding Dribble multiple times a day. Notice those brown stains at the thru-hulls? That’s Florida’s Okeechobee Waterway water for you. Our boat spits water out, causing a splash on the boat, which in these waters leaves nasty brown stains on anything it touches.
Crayola has officially allowed us to color on anything.
Indiantown Marina was a nice enough place. I can’t say enough about how friendly everyone that works there was, and what a great deal it was for us (free month storage for being a new customer, free month for having a friend recommend them to us, free month for the haul out being a day late), but with cruiser season about to kick off it just wasn’t our scene. Time to untie the dock lines and move towards salt water again.
We left early in a soupy fog. Fortunately nobody else is on the water here at this time of year. We would pass just five boats in the next two days, one cruiser, and four fishermen.
Sun burned off the fog and suddenly it was a crisp beautiful morning on the Okeechobee Waterway.
Back in their element—on Gator watch.
It is pretty cool that you can cruise right across the state of Florida like this. Here we are about to raise up one last foot in a lock to Lake Okeechobee.
No gulls on the river, but for the next few hours across the lake they wouldn’t leave our wake.
Reading a brochure about the locks and lake. These two kill me. My brother is nine years younger than me, so I never got to have this sort of relationship—watching these two makes me realize just how fortunate they are to have each other.
And yeah, that’s a bike crash injury right there. You can’t be a seven-year-old boy without those elbows.
We’ve got some varnish work to do.
Lowe is our minimalist.
We didn’t plan on making it this far on day one, but it was such a nice day (i.e. cool and cloudy) that we just kept cruising. Eventually we pulled in here at LaBelle where they’ve got a handful of free dock spaces for those of us passing through. The local restaurants get to collect our money instead of a marina.
Creativity at its finest—the back of some random building we were walking past on our way to dinner at the end of a long, fulfilling day.
18 Comments on “Crossing Florida”
There is a nice little Corp of Engineers campground and berthing for 4 boats at Olga, just before the WP Franklin Dam if your not in a hurry to get to the Gulf. I stayed there a couple of years ago on my sailboat… it’s clean and inexpensive.
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Indiantown,+FL+34956,+USA/@26.7224252,-81.694869,679m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x88deb7f173a90e89:0x1d5f83a16ca991ac!8m2!3d27.0272756!4d-80.4856083
No hurricane stories? Did it completely miss you?
In Indiantown, if you didn’t turn on a computer you’d have never known there was a hurricane.
“Lowe is our minimalist.” LOL . . . wonderful picture.
I’ve been following you for years – even tried to buy you and Ali pizza when you visited my hometown of Catania in Sicily. I’m driving near Okeechobee lake tomorrow and I’ll be on the lookout for you all!
Never been to inland Florida. Can the kids swim at all, or is it too ‘gatory?”
Too gatory. They were swimming all over the marina in Indiantown, and along the waterway too. Now in Ft. Myers we’re nice and close to the ocean again, though.
Pray for Mazatlan.
https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/weather-map-hurricane-willa-ht-mem-181022_hpEmbed_16x9_992.jpg
A wonderful start to the cruising season!
I’ve never considered sailing through the locks. And now that I’ve seen the pictures I am intrigued.
Wait, no video of you on the long board? Gotta remedy that.
Deb
SV Kintala
http://www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
man…I cant believe!!!! just crossed the lake today and yesterday (10/20 & 10/21) I wonder if we crossed paths and didn’t know it….red and black crew (Weeks Marine)? now staying in Cape Coral as we make our way back to Houma, La.
As always blessings to you and yours, Scott
We’re just up the water from you at Legacy Harbour.
Give a wave when you pass us in Naples!
Pat, I’ve taken a close look at all the photos of that fantastic solar bimini. I’m curious though – how will you handle rain and run-off? Also, are those “accent” panels laid in under the solar panels to keep the look clean or are they temporary?
Still working on the run off to make it go where we want it to. And the “accent” Starboard panels will stay in place to keep it clean looking. It was Starboard panels or canvas, and we are not canvas fans.
Please post more often, I need your family posts to remind me of normalcy, I’ve been following and enjoying your adventures from the beginning. lIving vicariously through you guys. Always my dream to do what you are doing. Love all four of you, and need what you’re doing. I know your web site is not political, but …….
M Martin
PHX AZ
More posts will come once we get moving in a week, just wrapping up projects, and loading up the boat.