Underway at Last - The First Three Days

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) cruising adventures on 

the Great Loop!

DAY 1 - Saturday, April 1, 2017

Launch Day! No pictures today! Fort Denaud to River Forest Yacht Center, LaBelle, FL. We woke up on the hard in our Boondockers Welcome host Larry's backyard alongside the Caloosahatchee River. After  breakfast, we filled our water tank, said our goodbyes, and headed for the Ortona Lock Boat Ramp.

We had discovered that my PDF had somehow decided to inflate itself in the storage cabinet, so I bought a cheapie PDF at Walmart outside LaBelle! The Ortona Lock Boat Ramp is really too small for Daydream, but with some maneuvering, we managed to get launched and I drove up and parked the truck.  Patty backed Daydream back down to the ramp, I waded out, and I was able to get on the swim step.

As soon as we were out of the boat ramp, we were staring at our first lock, the Ortona Lock. Headed east, this is a lift.  We called the Lock Master on the VHF, and were told a large boat was making a west bound transit, so we and quite a few other boats waited. The Lock Master wanted large boats on the starboard side and small boats on the port side. We were first small boat in line (not a good thing, we learned), entered the lock on the green light, and the attendant dropped two lines, one to me on the bow and the other to Patty in the cockpit. We held onto the lines to hold the boat against the wall, and after a bit, and we started rising as water entered the lock. I was surprised at the amount of turbulence the first in line suffers!  When the lock was filled and the doors opened, we exited the lock and our first of over 100 locks was behind us!

It was a short distance of about one statute mile (everything on the Loop is in statute miles) from the lock to River Forest Yachting Center, where we tied up next to a ladder because we are small and low to the water compared to the large yachts here, and the land is above the roof of the boat. The truck and trailer were still back at the boat ramp parking area on the other side of the lock several miles away, and the plan was for me to ride my folding bike back to retrieve the truck and trailer, but the first people we met here, Tom and Linda Geiger from Windsor, Ontario, had a car here and Tom offered to drive me back to the boat ramp, and I gladly accepted the offer! After retrieving the truck and trailer, I drove it right up to where Daydream is tied up, unloaded the camperback canvas, the other bike and the Sea Eagle inflatable kayak.

We had happy hour and appetizers with Tom and Linda, whose boat is a large Silverton 410 named Q's End, as Tom had been “Q,” the Canadian equivalent of “M” in the British MI6.  As we were talking, it turned out they had cruised the Loop in 2010 and were well acquainted with Flint and Leslie Firestone, who we hope will soon be our cruising companions! After Happy Hour, neither Patty nor I felt like dinner, so we returned to  Daydream and turned in early!

Our original plan was to leave the following day, but we saw we had enough to do here that we will probably stay here Sunday as well.

DAY 2 – Sunday, April 2, 2017 

We are still at River Forest Yacht Center, planning to leave early tomorrow morning, depending on weather!

Daydream and a Big Dog

I  got up early for Baxter duty, and took a few pictures in the morning light. I saw my first alligator, a little guy, swimming in the fairway here at the marina! After coffee and breakfast, we got down to work, or mostly I did. The heat has really gotten to Patty. We have great 12 volt fans, two Camfrano Ultimate fans and one Endless Breeze fan. One of the Camfrano fans is permanently mounted under the electronics shelf, but the other one can be moved around wherever needed. Last night we had the Endless Breeze fan on top of the screen over the vee-berth hatch, and it was really critical to letting us get a good night's sleep!

Fairway at River Forest

Daytream on the Wall

The tasks we had to accomplish today do not SEEM like they would take all day, but they did, so here we are! First, we put the camperback up. This is a complex camperback with 11, count  'em, 11  separate panels.  It is kind of like a jig saw puzzle, and we have to reacquaint ourselves with how it goes together each time we put it up!


Then I inflated the Sea Eagle kayak using the foot pump, because the leads from the electric pump we bought would not reach the battery. It was actually easier than I expected, and wonder if we really needed the electric pump! Then I had to figure out how to the put the bikes on the roof, which are now tied behind the solar panels just in front of the radar arch.  Next I put the kayak on the roof, trying several different positions.  It is upside down, resting on the radar arch, and covering the solar panels, but when we are running, the alternator will charge the batteries, and when we are anchored, the kayak will come down off the roof, so it all should work out!  With everything secured on the roof, the last thing I had to do was finish the fender boards. Yesterday we saw how the fender boards would have helped in the lock, so we are ready for the next lock tomorrow, weather permitting!

While we were having our sundowners at 5:30 p.m., we heard the thunder, and then the rain came. It has been really pelting us, and we are glad we have the camperback up! It is still raining cats and dogs at 8:00 p.m.! So our departure tomorrow will depend on whether this storm has blown through!

If we are able to leave, we will go a short 15 miles to the Moore Haven lock and be on Lake Okeechobee, and if we can cross the 30 miles to the other side, we have an anchorage that looks good a little south of the Mayaca Lock that takes us off the lake.

We have not had internet here for two  days. Our iPhones can do phone calls and let us view emails, but we cannot tether computers to the iPhone personal hotspots, so uploading to the blog will have to wait!

DAY THREE – April 3, 2017

We have finally left River Forest! We cast off our lines about 8:00 a.m., and cruised about 15 miles from River Forest to the Moore Haven lock. We were the only boat in the lock. Since the elevation change is a whopping one and half feet, no drama!

On exiting the channel from the lock, we came to what looked to the eye like a choice of channels, one to the right and one to the left. There was no sign or other marker. Both the Coastal Explorer chart and the Navionics chart showed clearly that the Okeechobee Waterway Channel was the channel to the right, so I turned right. Patty was convinced that we should have gone to the left, and the farther along we went, the stronger her conviction became, to the point where she decided we had to turn around but no sooner had we done that than two pontoon boats came along going the direction we had just come from, so she conceded we were going the right direction!

When we got to the last part of the channel out to the lake, we probed the center of the channel, the left side and the right side. At no point was it deeper than three feet and at points it was down to two and a half feet. Patty once again was sure we had made a wrong turn, wondering how in the world trawlers and sailboat could navigate this channel. Still, it was the channel marked on the charts!  Daydream fully loaded draws about two feet, and we were nervous as cats on a hot tin roof! The chart note said the Okeechobee Waterway is maintained at 6 feet from Fort Myers to St. Lucie, but this is simply not true!

The lake crossing was rough, there is no other word for it. This is a very shallow lake, not deeper than 10 feet anywhere we cruised, and often much less, with a very long fetch. it was like being tossed around in a washing machine. Anybody familiar with Bellingham Bay on a bad day will be able to relate, although this was Bellingham Bay times three.  Not a pleasant experience. I think this is were Patty said “I want to go home now”!

After crossing the lake, we had not figured out where we wanted to overnight. Pelican Bay looked attractive on Active Captain as a protected anchorage but there was no information about whether adjacent lands were public or private. There really should be a field about adjacent lands! We need to land Baxter twice a day. Boat ramps offer public access but by and large are not protected anchorages. Baxter's needs prevailed, and we are now anchored off the Canal Point Boat Ramp. Fortunately, the weather is now reasonably settled, and unless something changes, we should have a comfortable night!

When we got here, I took Baxter to the boat ramp, which was my first time in the Sea Eagle kayak. It seemed less stable than when we had tested it in Squalicum Harbor. I don't think it was fully inflated, and we will use the electric pump tomorrow before putting it back up on the roof! I took an unintended swim at the ramp as I slipped on some green slime on the concrete ramp! I must say, it actually felt good to cool off! No harm, I did not have my iPhone or wallet in my pockets!

We have now traveled 45.9 statue miles from the Ortona Lock Boat Ramp, and burned 11.8  gallons of fuel, for a very respectable 3.88 miles per gallon. We have mostly been cruising at 2,200 rpm at 6 - 7 mph, slower through the really shallow parts.  We are not in a hurry, and slow cruising pays off in fuel economy!

There is a strong T-Mobile signal here at Canal Point, so tonight is the night for posting the last three days to the blog!