Day 3 - Mon 30 Mar 2015
Moored - E of Port Mayaca Lock, FL

[photo: Clyde enjoying his new boat shelf in the master stateroom]

We both had a restful night as the outside (and inside) temps dropped again to 50. The berth started out comfortably warm and then gradually we needed more of the covers Diane had layered. Going to bed before 2100 means that I am likely to be up extra early and sure enough I got up around 0330 wide awake. I tried once more to make coffee in the new percolator with no success. The hot water is simply not rising up the inner tube to drip down on the coffee grinds. I see us getting a French press pretty soon.

Clyde enjoyed a brief visit on deck and was eyeing the shore with the desire to jump off. He was thwarted by the height of the deck above the dock, which is good. Diane got up around 0530 and was able to locate the tea bags that I could not find, so I made us some hot tea instead of coffee.

The pre-dawn was interesting with a school bus stalled on the bascule (draw) bridge right there near our dock and police were directing traffic one direction at a time. Each direction had to wait about 5 minutes before they could start to move. I imagine traffic was backed up outside the city limits in both directions. Not too long later, with the bus towed away, the first rays of sunlight illuminated the wisps of fog on the waterway. It was quite pretty, but not nearly as beautiful as the same scene on the Waccamaw River.

We got underway at 0720 and moved at 7 kts through the light, low fog into the rising sun, which was the worst of the visibility hazard, to be sure. We alternated between running at 7 kts and 12 kts and frankly there is no real in-between, something I am learning. There were 3 locks in today's longish run, plus a manually operated swing bridge along the rim route of the Okeechobee Waterway. We reached our originally intended anchorage before 1230 and decided jointly to carry on further.

The problem is that there are not any real tenable places to stop until you get through the Port Mayaca Lock, so the run was 70 miles in a little less than 8 hours. We came through the lock, which was open on both ends (unusual) and tied bow and stern to the large dolphin pilings set up for transiting barges (rarely are they used). Just after we came through, another boat we had passed came in and tied up just astern of us. They are doing the Great Loop, too.

Dinner tonight was really the first that we cooked from scratch on this boat. The previous meals were reheated prepared meals. This was a 3 pot meal on a 2-burner stove, so it required some ingenuity and timing, but it was very good.