We pulled anchor this morning at 0700 and were underway at 0715 leaving Fort Pierce bound for Cocoa, FL for the night.

Cocoa is one of favorite stops along the trip... Ryan's Village Pizza... we love it... last few trips we have just not had good timing and arrived in the Cocoa area on either Monday or Tuesday... Ryan's is closed on those two days... but not today...

Had quite a bit of north bound boat traffic today... all running faster than we were so we had a lot of boats pass us... probably close to a dozen... sure not use to this many boats heading north this early.

We did have favorable current for most of the day that... nothing tat slowed us down which is very nice.

Was a brisk (windy) day... starting out very gloomy until about 1030 then the sun popped out and it was mostly sunny the rest of the day.

We like to dock at the Cocoa Town Dock which is free... no power or water but it is very close to Ryan's Village Pizza and it's FREE... we arrived to find the dock with 4 boats on it and about a 60 foot opening... plenty of space for us... there was a large catamaran hovering around the dock... looked like a 60 footer to me... guess he was trying to figure out if he would fit... He decided "NO" and was headed away from the dock when someone on the dock hailed him on the VHF... telling him he had plenty of room that he had paced off the opening and had maybe 70 feet of space and to come on it... plenty of people on the dock to help you...

Anyway, he whipped around and with the help of several people on the dock he made it into the space with 4 or 5 feet clear on both his bow and stern... so we were not getting a FREE space tonight.

We called Cocoa Village Marina to see if they had any space open for the night and luckily they had one post left... a T-head just inside the marina... not the easiest marina to get into... very tight entrance with two 90 degree turns with in 75 feet of each other... we made it in...

We secure on the dock with power at approximately 1600... our position for the night N28°21.467', W080°43.542’. We traveled today for 8.75 hours covering 59.6 nautical miles averaging 6.8 knots.

We pulled anchor at 0645 and entered the Port Mayaca Lock at 0705... first boat to lock through for the day...

We were dropped about 6 inches to the level of the St. Lucie Canal... hardly seems worth the times it takes...

Yesterday we were in a pack of boats... today we saw very few boats... go figure.

We transited the St. Lucie Lock and it dropped us 13 ft to the level of the St. Lucie River... takes longer than you would think... maybe 30 to 45 minutes total from in to out... sure kills your average speed for the day.

Approaching the Roosevelt Bridge in Stuart, FL we saw the Railroad bridge adjacent to it lowering... just bad timing for us... spent another 45 minutes waiting on the train to pass and the bridges to open for us.

Did well from there...picked up a great boost in speed with the outgoing tide... we ran 7.5 to 8.5 knot all the way to the ICW... then turned north into the ICW and slowed to 5.5 knots...

We arrived to our destination for the day... Fort Pierce around 1600 and were secure on the hook at 1615... our position for the night N27°28.022', W080°19.053’. We traveled today for 9.25 hours covering 54.4 nautical miles averaging 5.9 knots.

Dropped the dinghy and took the dogs to the beach on the small island we were anchored next to... they can run off lease here and they really enjoy it.

We left Sweet Water Landing Marina this morning at 0715... leaving just before us were 2 other boats.

200 feet from the marina was the Wilson Piggott Bridge... we do not need an opening but do have to lower the mast and VHF antennas... was a great sunrise photo.

We picked up another boat in our pack at the Franklin lock... so we had 3 boats now ahead of us... and just after the lock we picked up 2 more boats behind us... total of 6 boats now all heading east... never have been across the Okeechobee Waterway and had this many boats traveling in very close proximity of each other... the lead boat was about 1 mile ahead of us and the 2 trailing were about the same distance behind us... and all of them were large cruising boats... we were the smallest one at 45ft... largest was 65 feet.

Our initial plan for the say was to stop in Clewiston and Roland and Martin Marina... calling them we were told they were booked full... we tried Riverhouse Marina in Moore Haven... also full...tried Moore Haven Town Docks... they were closed due to a boat file on the docks... that left nothing but to anchor... and there are not a lot of places to anchor in this area.... We opted to continue on across Lake Okeechobee to the Port Mayaca Lock... the lock stops operation at 1700 so we anchored just off the lock to the Northwest.... we will take the first locking at 0700 tomorrow.

We were secure on the hook at 2000... our position for the night N26°59.120', W080°37.508’. We traveled today for 6.75 hours covering 42.4 nautical miles averaging 6.8 knots.