We departed from Stuart, FL at 0645 hours and it was low tide... the Stuart City Courtesy Docks do not have a lot of water next to them... maybe 5' at low tide and our draft is 4'-8"... as I tried to move away from the docks I discovered there are a few spots where there are hills where the depth drops to less than 5'... we bounced around a little but managed to get away from the dock... :)

Actually as we moved out towards the channel we did not gain much depth... this area of the St. Lucie River is very shallow... dead center of the channel we only had 7' of water.

We had to open a bridge almost immediately after leaving... The Roosevelt Bridge... it is directly next to a railroad bridge that is automated and the Roosevelt bridge tender has no control over the railroad bridge. As we approached the bridges the railroads red light was flashing and the siren was sounding off... informing us that the railroad bridge was about to close. I communicated with the Roosevelt Bridge tender and he said we should stand off and wait until the train cleared. We were just about to turn 180 degrees around when suddenly the railroad bridges red light turned green and the siren stopped... I talked to Roosevelt Bridge tender again on the VHF and he said he saw it turn to green and he would open for us... but he also added... "I hope it turning to green is not a malfunction"... which was so reassuring for us... LOL Anyway we went ahead and turned around and head away from the bridges waiting for the Roosevelt Bridge to open... we had current on our stern pushing towards the bridges and I wanted the bridge open before we made a run under and through both bridges. He opened and we turned back towards the bridge... but what did we see but a small center console boat headed under the Roosevelt Bridge towards us... there is not enough room for it and us to pass through the railroad bridge fenders... and luckily the center console boat owner realized that and sped up to get through before us... we made it through both bridges but it was a little hairy there for a minutes or so... :)

We continued up the St. Lucie River towards what would be the first of three locks we would have to go through. We arrived at the St. Lucie Lock at 0800 hours and we were raised 12-1/2 feet and exited at 0838 hours... it took what I though to be an unordinary amount of time for this lock... I think he may of been a little gun shy to raise us quickly... he even hailed us on the VHF as we were entering the lock that we needed to use our lines due to the size of our boat... his lines would not be big enough... we've been through this lock maybe a dozen times and this was a first for us... we have always used the lines supplied by the lock.

While we were in the lock the lock tender told us to watch out for kayaks in the waterway as we exited... he said that there was a group of German Olympic contender here doing some workouts... and sure enough in after exiting the lock we came upon 6 people in kayaks... 4 men and 2 women... I approached slowly and was running at approximately 5-1/2 knots... they looked back and the next thing I knew they were leaving us in the dust... I sped up to 7 knots and caught them very very slowly... as I got close to them the dug deeper and more quickly with the paddles and were going the same speed as us... I ran like this with them alongside for a couple of miles... finally, I said enough of this and pushed the throttles forward and jumped up to about 8 knots and we moved slowly away from them but they were amazing... this made them work even harder to try and keep up... once ahead of the about a quarter mile I dropped back to 7 knots... they stayed with us for over 10 miles at that pace... finally, they dropped off and turned around. It made me tired just watching them... LOL

Before long we came to the Port Mayaca Lock. This is the lock where you leave the St. Lucie River and enter Lake Okeechobee... the lock was ready and waiting for us and we entered at 1142 hours and soon the lock gates closed behind us... he informed us that we would be going up about 3 inches... a lot different than the 12-1/2 feet at the previous lock. We exited the lock into Lake Okeechobee at 1152 hours.

The lake level is normally around 14-15 feet which gives you a minimum depth while crossing of approximately 8-9 feet. The lake level was now at 12.55 feet and this gave us minimum depth of 6.49 feet for the crossing and I saw this depth several times while we crossed... the bottom of the lake is not forgiving... ROCKS... so when you only have 1.5 feet of water under your bottom and the rocks it can be a little unnerving. But we made the crossing without a problem... :)

As you exit you go straight through a set of hurricane locks and are at Clewiston, FL... Roland Martins Marina... we made a 90 degree turn to starboard into the lake's rim canal and headed towards Moorehaven... our stopping point for the day.

The rim canal is a narrow channel between the dike that surrounds the lake and a barrier island of marsh land that surrounds the outer edges of the lake. With it being marsh land on our starboard for the next 12-13 nm you see an abundance of wildlife... and the most interesting one to see is the alligator... and we saw a lot of them and BIG ones... we stopped near a few of the bigger ones for a photo op... You’d think they like having their picture taken but it seemed to piss them off... LOL

Soon we arrived at the last lock for today's travels... the Moorehaven Lock... we entered at 1700 hours and were informed that we would be dropping about 8 inches... and it took very little time and we exited at 1710 hours and proceeded west into Moorehaven.

Ten minutes later at 1720 hours we were docked at the Moorehaven City Docks (N26°49.919', w081°05.391')... the dockage is inexpensive here at $1 per foot.

So for the day we traveled for 10 hours and 45 minutes and covered 62 nautical miles. This is a total of 1311 nautical miles since leaving Warwick, RI and a grand total of 3040 nautical miles since leaving Florida on April 3rd of this year headed to Warwick, RI.

We departed from Cocoa at 0645 hours and planned our final destination to be Stuart, FL. We had current with us to begin with but lost it as the day continued. We did have one bridge to open at Fort Pierce... the Fort Pierce North Bridge... it was on reauest so we did not have to wait any time at all.

The biggest difference about this day was it was sunny and warm... and there was a lot of boat traffic... mostly sailboats but we did have a few power boats and trawlers as well.

We docked at Stuart on the St. Lucie River at the Stuart Courtesy Docks located to the south just before the Roosevelt Bridge (N27°12.127', W080°15.214'). They are nice floating docks and make a good starting point to start our trek across Florida through the Okeechobee Waterway.

We stopped at 1900 hours traveling for 12-1/2 hours and covering 84 nautical miles for the day.

We departed from New Smyrna Beach at just before sunrise at 0600 hours. We had a fantastic current pushing us along at over 9 knots at times and it stayed with us most of the day... not at 9 knots but we did better than our normal 7 knot cruise.

Had a few bridges we needed to have opened but they were all on request and we zipped right through them with no waiting at all. We did have an odd experience at one bridge... the Addison Point Bridge (NASA Causeway) that when we approached had a two barges side-by-side under the draw span... when we hailed the bridge for an opening he informed us that they were doing dredge work under the draw and we had about 20-25 feet of width to pass between the bridge fender system and the barge... SAILS has an 18 foot beam so we had s a few feet to spare on each side as we passed under but it seemed REAL TIGHT!

We were bound for Cocoa, FL which maybe 45 nm south of Palm Coast... we have a favorite pizza place we love there and wanted to stop for lunch. We made it to Cocoa at about 1215 hours... just in time for lunch! We stopped at a Cocoa city dock that allows you to tie up and go into town... and it's FREE.

Boat secured and off to lunch at Ryan's Village Pizza… they have brick oven pizza that is out of this world and they have a 24" diameter pizza... it's huge! And of course that is what we ordered... one 24" meat lovers and a beer... WOW was it good!

We got back to boat about 1330 hours and after consuming a 24" pizza and several beers we were not to energetic to get back on the move.... so we decided to call it day and will spend the night here at Cocoa's Free dock. (N28°21.294', W080°43.335') That makes the total miles traveled for the day at 45 nautical miles. We will depart early in the morning bound for I believe Stuart, FL.