We departed from the Riverhouse Marina in Moore Haven just before sunrise at approximately 0630 hours. The first task of the day was to go through the Moore Haven Lock… we arrived at approximately 0630 hours and were able to enter the lock chamber with no delay… a quick 1 foot rise and we were back underway at 0658 hours.

Lake Okeechobee water level is down… that’s the reason for the outer locks having restricted opening schedules… Route 1 across the lake according to the Army Corp of Engineers website had a navigable depth of 5.91 feet… so it would be slow going in many locations… the rim canal from Moore Haven to Clewiston had a few spots where we saw 6 foot on the depth sounder… and the channel from Clewiston out in to the lake was very shallow… I saw many places where it was less than 6 feet.

Once into the lake we had two boats pass us… a 38’ trawler cat and 40’ trawler… the trawler was taking some shortcuts that I would of not even tried… cutting the corners of the channel… he made it without any problems… but I would not of done it… with his corner cutting he did get quite a ways ahead of us… not sure what his hurry was as the St Lucie Lock was either 1300 or 1500… there was no way he could make the 1300… the trawler cat and I followed each other across the lake and we went through the Port Mayaca Lock together… but after the lock he took off and was soon out of sight.

Not sure why the Port Mayaca Lock was even functioning… when they opened the gates on the St. Lucie side there was no noticeable change in water height… and the gates open and close on that lock REAL SLOWLY… took a long time to lock through.

We did have see a lot of boat traffic heading west back towards Fort Myers… at least a dozen power boats passed us… several were the same make… I assume they were dealer boats either coming or going to a boat show… and of course none of them were very courteous boaters… if they did slow down it was to a “plow through the water” speed that made their wake even bigger… not that any of their wakes really had much effect on us… it’s just the principle of the thing… they should slow down and be courteous.

We had about 20 miles to make the St. Lucie Lock by 1500 and we needed to average over 6.5 knots to make it… the problem was the water depth… for SAILS to get up to cruise speed she likes minimum 10-12 feet of water under her keel… we were running in 7-10 feet most of the way… so keeping the 6.5 knot average was touch and go… but we managed to make it… arriving at the St Lucie Lock 1459 hours. And who did we see there sitting and waiting for the lock… the 40’ “corner cutting” trawler and the 38’ trawler cat that had passed us earlier… rushing ahead did nothing for them…

After the lock we did not have far to go to reach our destination for the night… one more bridge that opens on demand.. Roosevelt Bridge” in Stuart… made that bridge with very little delay and just east of it we turn to starboard and dock at the Stuart City Docks… approximate location N27°12.136’, W080°15.218’.

Today we traveled for 10 hours and 5 minutes covering 62.12 nautical miles averaging 6.16 knots.