Note: stats are only for days that we have been traveling on our trip. Does not include the 9 months that the boat was in Bradenton waiting out Covid.
Friday, April 9 (Boca - Ft. Myers)
Day Miles: 42
Total Miles: 3793
Travel Days: 70
Total Days 163
Saturday (Ft. Myers - Roland Martin)
Day Miles: 67
Total Miles: 3860
Travel Days: 71
Total Days 164
Sunday (Roland Martin - Ft. Pierce)
Day Miles: 87
Total Miles: 3947
Travel Days: 72
Total Days 165
Monday (Ft. Pierce)
Day Miles: 0
Total Miles: 3947
Travel Days: 72
Total Days 166
It has been a busy few days making our way back to the East Coast. Sorry have not blogged in a few days, but will catch you up now. We left Boca Grande and headed South to Ft. Myers. It was a nice day to sleep in and cruise as we only had 42 miles to travel. Beautiful day and even the "miserable mile" was just uncomfortable. For you that don't know, the "miserable mile" is a stretch of water (about a mile) on the river just before Ft. Myers. It is an idle zone and there are usually hundreds of boats crammed into a this area both coming in and going out. When we reached Legacy Marina the wind kicked up making docking fun. I don't think my bow thruster is back to 100% yet after sitting for all that time. We managed to get into the dock without issue and began the daily ritual of washing down the boat, feeding the cat, and other boat related chores. We made plans to meet up with Mike and Deb Hervey that we met cruising the rivers over a year ago. We had a cocktails on the bridge and then went to Kings Kitchen for dinner. Sorry no pictures, but the blackened shrimp and muscles were very good. After dinner we parted ways and went back to the boat, planning for an early start on Saturday.
Saturday
We were up before the crack of down getting the boat ready for a sunrise departure. Had a long day planned of 67 miles, 3 locks, 1 swing bridge, and maybe a draw bridge or 2. We did leave Legacy at Sunrise and headed East. Most of the day was uneventful. We did have to wait for a couple of locks, but we made it to Roland Martin Marina, just before Lake Okeechobee, around 2:00. Turns out our timing was good as there was a bass tournament going on that was due to weigh in beginning at 2:30. It was fun watching hundreds of bass boats coming and going for the next couple of hours. There was a small shop on site and Tiki Bar restaurant. We made plans with Ray and Holly to meet for dinner. We traveled most of the day with them, going through the locks at the same time. Just made it back to the boat after dinner before a thunderstorm moved in. Lot of wind but not much rain. We spent some time trying to figure out what we wanted to do on Sunday for travel. Plan was to go 87 miles to Ft. Pierce, but we were unsure if we could make it in time as there was a major storm predicted to hit around 1:00. We decide to leave at sunset and try to make it to Stuart instead. About 30 miles shorter.
Sunday
Sunday proved to be a long day. We did leave at sunrise and headed across Lake Okeechobee. We entered the 1st lock and had to wait for 6 Grady White boats to lock in as well. There are part of a boat club that was at Roland Martin for the night also. After we locked through, we began cruising down the canal. At the 2nd lock we caught the Grady White's and waiting about 20 minutes for the lock to open. After the lock we ran the 7 miles into Stuart. It was about 12:00 and the storm forecasted had moved out to about 3:00. We decided to keep going and run the extra 30 miles to Ft. Pierce. We arrived at Ft. Pierce around 2:00 and we could see the storm moving in. Instead of getting fuel we felt it prudent to go directly to our slip. Wind was really blowing but we got backed into our slip and tied up. We got the front half of our isenglass up and decided to put on the rest of the sides and back. No sooner than we had the last back piece on, the skies opened up and it began rain and blow. Wind was so strong that I went out the in the storm to place additional lines. We did not loose any isenglass, but the wind was so strong that it blew it out of the front snaps and I was unable to get it hooked again. Oh yeah, we also lost power on the dock. Good news is that the generator still works. It felt like hurricane winds, but it was probably only 40 to 50 mph. After several hours it calmed down, the marina did get the power back on and we walked up to Cobb's landing for dinner. Dinner was nice surprise with Gumbo and Marcia had crab cakes. We relaxed on the boat looking forward to not traveling on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment