Delilah's Meanderings

We are currently tied up to the Moore Haven City Dock near the west side of Lake Okeechobee in the center of Florida! Tomorrow we plan to get up early and make our way across the lake and then the next day on to Stuart, FL on the east coast of Florida. Our plans are to spend the next few weeks cruising the area between Stuart and Ft. Pierce on the Atlantic before heading back across the Okeechobee Waterway (OWW) to FMB. This our first experience of using the OWW as a "fast" way to get to the other side of Florida. So far it has been enjoyable trip and we are learning a lot. Continue reading for more details.

In our last post on January 22nd Delilah was anchored in Pelican Bay near Cayo Costa. Below is a day by day journal from then until today.

1/23 ... Quiet night on the hook. Up early and raised anchor at 7:30am. The anchor weighed a ton with sticky bottom stuff that didn't want to come off. No wonder it didn't drag. It was like being in concrete! Motored out without issue at low tide. It is nice having a shallow draft boat. Although the mornings have been cool, we stayed warm with the cockpit enclosed. We kept running lights on because there was a light fog at first. Traffic was light on the ICW. We ate cereal enroute. We motor sailed when possible with the genoa rolled out. I saw a big yellow/gold sea turtle head poke out and then duck back down before we ran over it ... no worries they are much faster than we are! We saw a few dolphins underway, always a pleasure. For lunch we had sweet kale mix salad/slaw. We hooked up to FMB mooring ball #48 at 12:30pm. Put the boat back together, got the dinghy down, and went into the office to pay for a week... $103. Took showers in shower room #1 with the pressure washer shower head. Kim may have stayed in longer than necessary! Walked to the Whale and had happy hour; iced tea, wings for Kim and mussels for me. Stopped and chatted with several friends from the boat yard. It oftens works like this ... you motor by a friends boat in the mooring field, they are sitting out, see you, yell "welcome back" and wave you over. You dinghy over, tie off your dinghy's painter (rope on the bow) to cleat on their boat, and sit in your dinghy and have a nice visit with them. This can happen several times before you make it back to your boat. Little later we went to Parrot Key for chocolate volcano dessert ... back to the decadance of city life!

1/24 ... It was a quiet night on ball #48, slept well. Had cheerios for breakfast. Refastened smoke/CO detector using double sided tape. Ran bleach water thru shaker siphon hose to clean it up a bit. Got out bicycles. Inflated fenders. Checked level of holding tank ... 3/4 full. The pump out boat came by later per our request. I could do a whole post on the that, but probably shouldn't. :) Later boat yard friends stopped by in their dinghy for a chat. Dinghy in with bicycles in new bags I made over the winter. Inflated tires and rode bikes to Charro Brothers and shared chicken fajitas ... it was excellent as usual. Back to the dock and back to the boat. Scraped barnacles off the mooring ball and the pennant. Messed around with the mooring ball connection. Dinghy over and chatted with friends on a Gemini like our "Sea Quest". Kim fixed spinach and cheese ravoli with pesto sauce for supper.

1/25 ... Dinghy in and rode bikes to Heavenly Biscuit for breakfast sandwich and shared a cinnamon biscuit. Filled up water jugs and returned to boat. Made another water run to top off the tanks. Dinghy in and rode bikes to Goodz hardware to exchange propane tank. Ate coldcuts for lunch aboard. Good friends from Kokomo, aboard Osprey, arrived and attached to last mooring ball. Dinghy in, take showers, bike to Bowditch Point Park and walked on the beach. Beautiful sunny day, breezy and a little cool. Met friends (Osprey and Little Mick) for supper at the Original Shrimp Dock.

1/26 ... A chilly sleeping bag type of night. I made warm quinoa with blue berries and Kim had bowl of cheerios for breakfast. Spent morning doing chores; clean rust off swim ladder, sewed thread around bridle line and dinghy painter. Kim cleaned up the inside of the boat and made salad with tuna fish for lunch. Played several hands of rummy. Dinghy in for a walk, went to Times Square area. Back to the boat. Saw people on kayaks near our boat. After we got on the boat they came over and wanted to talk about Geminis. The wife and her 2 daughters came aboard for a little tour while I chatted with the husband who stayed on his kayak. Dinghy and met friends for supper at Island View for 2 for 1 pasta night, very good.

1/27 ... Another chilly night in the sleeping bag. It rained a little. Had cereal for breakfast. Very cloudy and little worried about batteries getting charged up. Ran diesel engine to charge them up. It started quickly, thankfully. Made a list of things to do before leaving Thursday. Instead of heading south down the west coast, we decided to try something new ... cross Florida via Lake Okeechobee and cruise on the east coast of Florida. We asked everyone about their experiences on the OWW. Dinghy in for showers. Ate lunch with friends at Matanzas Inn. I had shrimp burger and Kim had Mahi Mahi. Their food quality is excellent! Back to the boat and cleaned it up in preparation to host game night with friends. Kim made sweet potato and black beans for supper. Guests arrived at 6:30pm we played a dice game called Tenzi. Kim won the most rounds and then we finished with 5 hands of 6 card Golf which Tammy won by a landslide.

1/28 ... Researched Okeechobee Waterway passage on the Active Captain website. Dinghy in rode bikes to Island Pancake House for breakfast, food was okay. Kim stayed on shore to do 2 loads of laundry. I went back to boat and to get diesel and gas cans and then went to Diversified for fuel. Back to the boat and siphoned diesel into tanks making them 7/8 full. Back to Diversified to refill diesel cans. This should be enough fuel to get Delilah across Florida to Stuart. Dinghy over and picked up Kim. Back to boat to put away laundry. It was a beautiful sunny day. We dinghy in rode bikes to Times Square and had pizza, then walked to end of pier, shared scoop of Ft Myers Mud ice cream, and then back to the boat. Marked Active Capt. anchorages on paper chart. Ran the generator to charge up the computers, kindle, etc. Cleaned up and dinghy in and walked to The Whale to have Happy Hour supper of wings and mussels with friends. Had blizzards at Dairy Queen and ran into other friends who showed their boat earlier in the day and accepted an offer! You may have heard that the best 2 days of a boat owner is the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it.

1/29 ... Cereal for breakfast, dinghy brin in back the bikes, dinghy in for water, dinghy in to get delivered groceries (thank you Instacart), pumped out, dinghy in for showers, saw friends and said our goodbyes, printed OWW bridges and locks lists in the Matanzas office. Got boat ready and dropped line to ball #48 at 12:35pm. Motored out against strong current in Matanzas pass. Motor sailed a little with genoa until wind died. Made good speed rest of the way motoring east on the Caloosahatchee river, even up to 7 knots per hour. Lots of boat traffic so it was choppy. Had cold cuts, cheese on crackers, carrots, grapes, and potato salad for lunch underway. Anchored at 4pm in a nice spot with plenty of depth just past the I75 bridge on the north side of the channel near a power plant. Kim made spaghetti for supper. I did boat stuff and everything looked good. After dark a thunderstorm with heavy rain rolled through. Researched locking process on the internet. Watched a couple of videos on YouTube. It is pretty simple. You hail the lock on VHF channel 13, tell them S/V Delilah approaching from west, and wait for instructions, such as enter lock on green light and tie up on the starboard side.

1/30 ... Cereal for breakfast. Heavy dew, wiped windows and eisenglass, sponged out dinghy, bailed out starboard bilge, readied boat for travel. Anchor didn't want to let go, so Kim drove over it to break it free, no wonder it held with winds from all directions. Got underway at 7:50am. Very little boat traffic. Almost immediately we hailed the Wilson Pigott bridge tender on channel 9 for an opening. All bridges ont the OWW are on demand, so nice not to have to wait for timed openings. Next we went through our first "big boy" lock, the Franklin Lock. It was easy, only a 1 foot raise. We motored in behind a power boat who had been waiting and held on to ropes handed to us by a friendly worker. The lock was huge 56' by 400'. Next there was a Alva Bridge, then Fort Denaud swing bridge where the tender is in the middle piece and you can talk to him as you go by. Before we got to the bridge we waited for a group of 8 motorboats traveling together to pass by. The next bridge was La Belle. Kim heated up leftovers for lunch. We just made it to the Ortona Lock where 2 boats were waiting. She had us tie up on port, so I quickly moved 4 fenders from the starboard to the port side of the boat. This was an 8' rise! Kim felt like she got a good workout hanging on to the bow rope. We motor sailed some with the genoa which got us up to 6 knots. Most of the day we motored above 5.5 knots. The weather prediction is not looking so good for Friday and Saturday, so I looked at Active Captain several times to see what our overnight stay options are. It was a beautiful day on the water, not much traffic, and smooth water. The scenery keeps you from getting bored after hours of motoring. We saw cows and horses. We saw some pretty homes with live oaks draped in Spanish moss. Some areas are uninhabitated. At 4pm we pulled up to the Moore Haven city dock which runs along the north side of the river. Very reasonable $1 foot/night including electricity and water. 5 day stay maximum. The restrooms and shower are located in building next to the town hall. Nothing fancy, but should do the job. A Nordic tugboat was there and the older man with an English accent came out to help us tie up. Later another motor boat came in. The dock is 300' long. We cleaned up and walked to a mexican resturaunt called Haven Fresh. Looked a little iffy on the outside, but was very nice inside. The food was very good and we shared a chocolate shake for dessert. This small town is lucky to have it! A large family group came in after us celebrating a birthday. With weather threatening, we made a plan are to stay here and leave Sunday morning after the front goes through.

1/31 ... I made hot quiona for breakfast for me and Kim had cheerios. Siphoned diesel out of the cans into tanks bringing them up to 7/8 full. Oiled and lubed drive leg. Got bicycles out and we rode around town, went to the Moore Haven lock and rode down the levy. Kim made Suddenly Salad for lunch. Paid for 2 more days at the dock. Emailed pics off phones to surface pro, edited them, and uploaded to the blog. Rode bikes more, stopped by dollar store for a gallon of drinking water. Went to Joey's for pepperoni and mushroom pizza and salad for supper … very good. Took showers. Noticing tiny pieces of black ash on the boat from sugar cane fields being burnt.

2/1 ... Cloudy morning, started diesel to charge up batteries. Before the rain started we walked down the Moore Haven River Walk to stretch our legs. It is nice area with with picnic tables under shelters and docks spread over about a 1/2 mile. Kim caught up on some personal computer tasks. We walked to Joey's for lunch and ate ham & cheese and chicken subs. Very good, also got my sunglasses which I left there yesterday by accident. :) The rain poured on our walk back to the boat. Thankfully we had rain gear on, except I didn't wear my rain pants. Silly mistake. Our shoes got soaked ... but it was worth it. Then I researched the next phase of our trip putting in waypoints on the Garmin GPS plotter for the anchorages we plan to use. I called the Moore Haven Lock to be sure they will be open tomorrow morning at 7am. (I can leave our fenders on port side for this lock through.) An 82 year old man stopped by and chatted for a while. He is originally from Indiana and owns and operates the Metamora Museum of Oddities when he isn't down here. The rain ended and we walked to Haven Fresh to share chicken fajitas. Shared a vanilla shake for dessert.

We've really enjoyed this quiet little town of Moore Haven. Everyone has been friendly. You can tell times are hard here as with most small towns that don't rate a Walmart. This is our first exposure to a small Florida town with multiple races living together. We didn't sense any issues, everyone living together as a community. It gives one hope that this country is not divided as it appears from when you watch the news. We will probably stop by here on our way back to FMB.

We're looking forward to being on the move again and will have new adventures to share.

Fair winds and following seas ... Mark & Kim