We departed from Moorehaven, FL this morning 0730 hours and headed west across the Okeechobee Waterway towards Fort Myers, FL. We had about 60 nautical miles to go and planned to stop there for the night.

We had two locks to go through... Ortona Lock and Franklin Lock... we reached Ortona Lock at 0915 hours and only had to wait a couple of minutes before we got the green light to enter. We dropped 9 feet at this lock and the lock tender was not shy about the speed he lowered us... we were down 9 feet and out of the lock in 15 minutes exiting at 0930 hours.

After Ortona Lock we had three bridges to deal with... all of which were on request so they did slow us down at all... first the Labelle Bridge, then the Denaud Swing Bridge and finally the Alva Bridge.

Then we came to the Franklin Lock... we heard on the VHF ahead of us two boats that had passed us were entering the lock to lock through westbound... we were still 8 minutes away... luckily for us one of the boats had some very "novice" operators on board and as we rounded the bend we could see they were having some trouble in the lock.. their boat was sideways halfway into the lock... they were right at where the gate that closes is located... anyway, their troubles enabled us to make it the lock at 1250 hours and lock through with the other boats westbound... if we had missed the westbound lock through we would of had to wait 30-45 minutes for the next westbound lock... :) We dropped 2 feet at this lock and exited at 1300 hours.

After the Franklin Lock we had one more bridge to open... the Wilson Pigott Bridge... it was on request and we passed through with no wait at all... :)

We decided to stop in Cape Coral rather than Fort Myers... it would only add another hour to day’s travels and the place we were going is very nice... Rum Runners at Cape Harbor... a restaurant dock and it offers FREE dockage while you eat.

We arrived at Rum Runners dock at 1630 hours and secured the boat. (N26°32.592', W082°00.424') We traveled for 9 hours today covering 60 nautical miles. Tomorrow we head to our final destination... Fisherman's Village Marina in Punta Gorda. We will be docked there until Mid April 2011 when we will start our trek back north to Rhode Island.