After
a wonderful trip back to San Francisco over the holidays to visit many friends,
we resumed our trip south on our boat. Tampa to Stuart - Okeechobee Waterway - January 2007
After
a wonderful trip back to San Francisco over the holidays to visit many friends,
we resumed our trip south on our boat.
We headed south from Dunedin across Tampa Bay and down past Charlotte Harbor to Fort Myers.
From Fort Myers we cut inland onto the Okeechobee Waterway which runs across the center of Florida through Lake Okeechobee to Stuart on the east coast of Florida.
Lake Okeechobee is the second largest lake completely within the boundaries of the U.S. Lake Michigan, which we traveled through last fall, is the largest. Actually, Lake Okeechobee is a long way from being considered the sixth Great Lake!
The Okeechobee waterway was completed in 1937 and connects the east and west coasts of Florida. The waterway has 5 locks - bringing the total number of locks for our Great Loop trip to 146. (You'd think we'd have the hang of them by now, wouldn't you??)
There are 3 locks that slowly take you up to the level of the lake on the western end of the waterway and two that lower you back down on the eastern side.
While we were in the Tampa area, we rented a car and drove down to Fort De Soto State Park. Fort De Soto played a major role in the Spanish-American war of 1898. The war ended in victory for the United States and spelled the end of the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean and Pacific. One hundred and thirteen days after the outbreak of war, the Treaty of Paris was signed in which Spain surrendered Puerto Rico and the islands of Guam to the US. In addition the US agreed to purchase the Philippines from Spain for twenty million dollars. The treaty further placed the island of Cuba under a 20-year U.S. trusteeship under which Spain allowed for the eventual independence of the island. The 20-year plan was abandoned in 1901 when Theodore Roosevelt became president. He had fought in the Spanish-American War and had sympathies with the Cuban independence movement. With his help, Cuba gained independence on May 20, 1902. As we all know, Cuba has had, and continues to have, a troubled history as an independent country - with corruption running rampant in it's early years culminating in the current regime headed by Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 and and has held effective power in the country until handing it over to his brother for medical reasons in July 2006. As of 2006 he was the world’s longest-ruling current head of government.
This
is a photo of a mortar cannon - one of 8 originally installed at Fort De Soto.
Some college kids were practicing for the Human Cannonball with it. It's
probably a better career path than "would you like fries with that, sir
??"
On our way down past Tampa Bay we were lucky to be escorted by a very active pod of dolphins. They kept jumping up out of the water, and I kept snapping pictures of them. The first two are of the same dolphin who jumped up first with his back to me and then with his tummy to me.
Dolphins tend to jump sideways and do a body slam on the water when they hit. The theory is that it stuns the fish so they are easier to catch.
Look Ma!!! No water!!! Caught this one completely out of the water.
One more close up picture. This was SO amazing. It was like our own little private show from Marine World. Only these guys are out in the wild really enjoying life.
We passed by the very tall Sunshine Skyway bridge. It is one of the tallest bridges in Florida with a vertical clearance of 193 feet.
We spent some time with our friends Frank and Cindy on Peacekeeper who were docked at a marina (Seafood Shack) just south of Tampa Bay. Reaching Tampa Bay marked the completion of the loop for Frank and Cindy - since that was where they started their trip 18 months ago. To celebrate we presented them with their Gold Looper Completion flag. They also get a 'Bacalooperate' certificate from the AGLCA (America's Great Loop Cruiser's Association) to commemorate their completion. Jeremy was honored to be in the presence of someone who's finished.
We went out on their boat and Frank taught Jeremy how to fish. 'Man the Hunter' seems very proud of his 'catch.'
Close up of the 'big one' that didn't get away. Note that the measurement on the cooler is in centimeters, not inches - sorry, Jeremy. It's still pretty good, considering that the last fish he caught was even smaller and was 'caught' by committing suicide and throwing himself sideways onto the hook. Somehow I'm thinking we may want to continue to rely on the fish market for those home-cooked seafood diners. We seem to do much better trolling a $20 bill...
Some very nice places we saw along the waterway south of Tampa.
We saw this mural going through Venice, Florida.
Cutting inland at Cape Coral we headed past Fort Myers and onto the Okeechobee Waterway. Our first stop along the way was at the delightful town of La Belle. The town is very welcoming to boaters, and has installed a free town dock. You are allowed to stay up to 3 days, and there is even free water and power provided for up to 4 boats. Unfortunately, we were the fifth boat to arrive, but no worries - we were just happy to have a nice safe place to tie up for the night. Since the dock is not that long, they request that you tie up 'Med-Style' - meaning that you drop an anchor off your bow and back into the dock. We'd not done this before, but Jeremy managed to get us in on the first try. All the other boaters there were very impressed... Of course it didn't hurt that there were a couple of them on the dock ready to take our lines as we backed in.
The town had a beautiful park not far from the town docks - complete with a mini stage under some of the most beautiful live oak trees I've seen in awhile.
Heading east again, we made our way to Clewiston, known as the 'Florida's Sweetest City' since it is the sugarcane capital of Florida. The biggest employer of the area, U.S. Sugar Corp, farms nearly 200,000 acres in the area. Its mills can process nearly 45,000 tons of sugarcane per day, producing over 700,000 tons of sugar per year. Which leads one to wonder if Clewiston is also the 'Dentist Capital' of Florida as well???
We were awakened the next morning at 5:30 AM by the sound of lots and lots of bass boats starting up their engines. It seems that Lake Okeechobee is also the Bigmouth Bass capital of the world - and they were having one of the biggest bass fishing tournaments in Florida while we were there. There were 200 bass boats in the tournament, each one with a pro and an amateur angler competing for the top prize. The purse was huge - $1 million in total prize money with the top pro taking home $100,000 and the top amateur taking home $20,000. Even coming in as low as 50th place would bring you $10,000 as a pro or $1050 as an amateur. These guys had to be really dedicated to their sport, though. The entry fee was $3500 for the pros and $700 for the amateur. They go out for 8 hours a day for 3 days straight to compete. On the 4th day of the contest, the top 10 anglers went out to determine the overall winner. We saw them all off on their first day of fishing. Actually, we didn't have a choice. You want to try to get out of a marina with 200 small bass boats zooming around??
Coming across Lake Okeechobee, we were escorted by the 'Seagull Air Force.'
What's wrong with this picture?? This houseboat was perched high and dry along the side of the waterway as we came past.
The St. Lucie lock is the last lock we will pass through on our Great Loop cruise! Locks worked a little differently than the others we'd been through in that the way the lock levels were raised or lowered was by opening the lock doors a bit and letting the water flood in (or out) through the doors. All of the other locks we've been through use separate gates to transfer the water and only open the main lock gates once the lock level has been fully raised or lowered.
When we arrived in Stuart, we realized that we have actually completed the loop here - if you count crossing the wake that we made in 1992 when we came up the east coast from Miami to Annapolis on Flying Cloud. Tardis will not complete the loop until we reach Jacksonville - so, while we had a little celebration here, we are waiting until we reach Jacksonville to really celebrate closing the loop and putting up our own gold completion burgie.
Updated January 25, 2007