We departed from Rum Runners Docks early before sunrise at 0640 hours... plans to go to Moore Haven for the night. The outer locks of the Okeechobee Waterway are on a restricted opening schedule so we needed to be at Franklin Lock by either 0900 or 1100… after getting underway we were just not going to be able to make the 0900 locking so we set our speed to be there by 1100 hours.

We arrived at Franklin Locks at 1054 hours and joined two other boats waiting for the 1100 locking… a 40’ sportfish and a sailboat… the sportfish was handing bug control for us… billowing smoke out it’s exhaust… almost needed a mask for the fumes… 1100 hit and we got the green light to enter the lock… 22 minutes later after being raised 2 feet we were again underway.

We had several bridges today… only one we have to open… Fort Denaud Swing Bridge… the others I lowered the antennas and mast to clear them. Just after going through the Franklin Lock I heard the Fort Denaud bridge tender talking with a boat.. telling them that the bridge would not open and she was waiting for county maintenance to arrive to fix it… we still had quite a distance to go so we hoped for the best and that the county workers would get the bridge repaired… then a few minutes later we heard the same boat thanking the bridge for an opening… guess the old swing bridge was just being a little cantankerous… later in the day we had no problems and she swung the bridge open for us with no major delay.

There was a lot of boat traffic going west back towards Fort Myers… must have had a dozen boats of all types pass us heading west… of course there were a few that greeted us with a big wake as they passed without slowing down.

We arrived to the last lock for today… Ortona Lock… at approximately 1455 hours and the lock was open and waiting for us to enter with no delay at all. Twenty minutes later after a rock and roll 8’ rise we were back underway… Moore Haven next stop.

We arrived and docked at the Riverhouse Marina in Moore Haven at 1655 hours. Approximate location N26°49.858’, W081°05.447’.

Today we traveled for 10 hours and 15 minutes covering 59.6 nautical miles averaging 5.81 knots.