RETURN TO THE EAST COAST

Since we were enjoying it so much, we ended up staying at Rialto Harbor for two weeks.  We had a good time reading, relaxing, playing tennis, swimming, walking, and entertaining friends.  Bob and Beverly Gerhart spent one night with us, two of Matt's business associates of came for one afternoon, and Pam and Harvey Geiger came for lunch one day.  We always like showing off our boat. 

A little trivia -- Rialto Harbor is in Alva, Florida.  For those of you that have known me a long time will remember that I went to college in Alva, Oklahoma.  

Are you now ready for some "exciting" cruising? We have learned that you have to be ready for the unexpected. 

After the Geigers left on Wednesday, the 23rd, we started our return trip to Stuart.  We left the dock for an expected 2-1/2 hour trip to a marina on the other side of La Belle.  We approached the La Belle bridge at 4:30 and radioed for an opening (it is only 23 feet high and we need closer to 30 feet).  We were informed that the bridge closes from 4:00 to 6:00 for rush hour.  What??? Rush hour in La Belle? Well, that really messed up our timing.  We just "hung around" and finally went through the bridge.  We realized that we were not going to be able to make the marina before dark (they have a very narrow opening that we did not want to attempt at night).  We proceeded on with the intention of finding a place to anchor on the Caloosahatchee River.  As usually happens, it kept getting darker and darker and we kept going.  We got to a lock and decided to go ahead and go through it because it was so well lit and we could anchor on the other side of it.  The lock was easy, but when we left all the lights it was pitch black and we couldn't see anything.  Matt ended up standing on the bow and giving me instructions on steering.  We went a couple of miles then dropped anchor.  It wasn't very good holding ground, so we moved around a little.  It was around 9:00 by then.  We took turns "standing watch" all night.  I don't think I slept at all. 

We were prepared to pull up anchor at first light.  It was overcast so didn't start till about 6:30.   As Matt was pulling up the anchor he found that a huge tree root/branch was attached to the anchor.  One of its tendrails was wrapped in the fluke and it weighted about 60 pounds on top of the already 80 pound anchor.  He spent about 15 minutes with the boat hook, his hands and a hammer trying to get it off.  It was impossible.  We knew we couldn't proceed with it attached, plus the fog was coming in, so we went to the marina that we were supposed to have been the night before.  We arrived there at 7:00 a.m. and a nice lady on the boat in front of us helped us with the lines.  

When the dock hands arrived at work they looked over at the front of our boat and thought we had hooked an alligator (see photos).  They came over and tied a rope onto the tree and pulled it off.  As you can tell, they were young and strong.  We couldn't have done it by ourselves.  This could only happen to us. 

We decided to just stay there for the day and night.  We were too tired for the long day of crossing the lake to return to Stuart.  We slept and rested most of the day.

We got up at 6:00 on Thursday and left shortly thereafter.  We went through two locks, crossed Lake Okeechobee and went through the final lock uneventfully.  We were ready to be back at Loggerhead Marina in Stuart.  As we approached the last bridge (immediately before the marina) we called for an opening.  The operator informed us that he couldn't open the bridge because the railroad bridge to the east of it was closed awaiting a train and he didn't know when it would be open.  The railroad bridge is automated and triggered by a train approaching.  When closed, there is only a 7 foot clearance.  We "held short" for over 20 minutes -- not easy in the wind that is always at Stuart.  When they both did open there were about 10 boats coming the other way so we had to wait even longer.  We thought we had it made when we got through both bridges, but it was not to be. 

We were not able to reserve the same slip that we had before (G-110), but they said we could have G-102 for the months of March and April.  We had told them that we might arrive a few days early.  Around 3:00 we called and asked it it was okay to come in today.  The dock hand went and looked and said the slip was empty and to come ahead.  As we were pulling into the "fairway", Matt noticed that there was a small boat in 102.  What to do now?  We were already "committed".  We saw that 105 was empty, so I quickly changed lines from port to starboard side.  We had a good docking and were thrilled to be back.  We had been traveling for over 10 hours.  It took us about an hour to get tied up correctly, connect power, TV, etc.  The boat was absolutely filthy between the dirty water of the lake, the dirty lines in the locks and all the dead bugs we attracted. 

We have spent the last couple of days cleaning up both inside and outside.  Some of our friends are still here, but most have left on trips of their own.  We saw a few on the waterway. 

Our plans have changed  a little.  We are not going to take the boat to Hilton Head in April, we will drive instead.  We have rented a condo on the beach for the whole month.  We decided that we needed to get off the boat for a while, then come back in May and decide where our next adventure will take us.

Stay tuned and thanks for following.

Judy & Matt

Methodist Church in Alva, Florida circa 1880

Pam and Harvey, with Matt and dog Blue (caretaker's dog)

Sunset on river

Does it look like an alligator?

Guys getting tree off anchor

Sunrise on river

HAPPY 60TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!

We want to wish our dear friends, Bob and Beverly Gerhart, a happy 60th wedding anniversary - yes, they were married on Valentine's Day in 1951.  They are amazing people. 

Bob and Beverly spent Saturday night with us on board Monkey Business and we all played a little tennis on Sunday morning. 

OUR TRAVELS CONTINUE

When last we posted, we were sitting at a dock at the beautiful Rialto Harbor Marina.  On Monday, February 1st, Bill and Dorothy Taylor came to visit us.  We had a nice lunch with them.  On Tuesday, we got a rental car and went to Fort Myers to see the Thomas Edison/Henry Ford Winter Homes.  Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor and, as everyone knows, invented lots of electrical devices, such as the electric light bulb, phonograph, storage battery, etc., but he also was very interested in finding a way for America to have a home grown source of rubber.  He felt that southern Florida had the climate to grow various trees that would produce rubber and he also wanted to develop synthetic rubber.  He bought land in Fort Myers along the Caloosahatchee River very close to what is now downtown Fort Myers.  He build a winter home and several laboratories on the property to do his experiments.  He also brought in trees and tropical plants from all over the world to facilitate the materials he needed.  He continued to work on the electrical inventions, with his top priority being storage batteries.  He built an electric car and other devices using batteries for the first time.  His involvement with cars attracted the attention of Henry Ford.  The two became fast friends and remained so all of their lives.  Ford visited Edison in Fort Myers and decided to buy some land next to Edison and he built a modest home that looks almost identical to Edison's.  The homes are far from mansions, wood frame design and not large at all.  Ford only spent about two weeks each winter at the estate.  The two homes are beautifully landscaped and a delight to visit and to walk the grounds.  After the death of Edison and Ford, their widows donated the estates to the town of Fort Myers.  The town runs tours, has public functions, etc. at this wonderful site along the waterfront. They also have an Edison light parade at Christmastime that is supposed to be spectacular.

We departed on Thursday, February 3rd and headed west.  It was foggy when we got up, so we waited for it to clear.  We wanted to get the 9:00 opening at the Franklin Lock, the last of the five locks when crossing from east to west on the Okeechobee Waterway.  We slid smoothly away from the dock and just then the fog came back, but was much denser.  We went ahead and headed about a mile down the river.  We decided that it was much too foggy to try to go through an unfamiliar lock.  We turned around and were trying to decide whether to anchor and wait until the 11:00 opening or go back to Rialto.  About that time it cleared up for good and we entered the lock.  It was very easy for us (once again we were the only boat).  We following the Waterway through Fort Myers, Coral Gables and Fort Myers Beach to Mile Zero of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the end of the Okeechobee Waterway.  We turned south to cross under the bridge from Fort Myers Beach to Sanibel Island.  We proceeded to the Sanibel lighthouse area and turned northwest along the shore in about 20 feet of water.  We anchored, but the wind was coming up and we did not like the proximity to the shoreline in the event the anchor dragged during the night.  We pulled up the anchor and managed to snag a fish trap, of which there were many.  We got the trap off of the anchor line and moved out about another 100 yards from the shore and successfully anchored.  Beautiful scenery with bluegreen waters.

That evening we sat on the back of our boat and really enjoyed perfect weather and a beautiful setting.  The next day we launched our dingy, an 11 foot Italian hard bottomed infaltable boat with a 25 hp Yamaha outboard engine.  The dingy has a driving station with instruments, bilge pump, steering wheel, etc.  We also have night running lights, an anchor and it is very comfortable.  We drove around the bottom of the island by the lighthouse and into the Gulf of Mexico.  The beach is very nice with houses along the shoreline.  We then went down to the Sanibel Marina and tied up at an old dock, bought some gas for the dinghy and had a great lunch at Grandma Dot's, a local restaurant that is very popular.  We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table.

The next morning we took the dingy about 200 yards to the beach and tied it up around some rocks with the anchor line.  We walked about 2 blocks to the Lighthouse Cafe, billed at the "World's Best Breakfast."  Food was great and worth the few minutes we had to wait for a table.  After breakfast we walked to a bicycle rental place that we thought was about a quarter of a mile down the road, but turned out to be about a mile and a half.  We rented bikes and rode over to the beach side on the Gulf.  Nice beach, but nothing special and to the wildlife preserve.  We rode about 10 miles and then had to walk back to the dingy, we were pretty tired after the days' activities.  We enjoyed a glass of wine in the cockpit and watched the sun settle into the Gulf.

After several nights of anchoring and seeing islands, we discussed what we wanted to do next.  We both said that the best time we had was at Rialto, so we came back here.  It's hard to explain how relaxing and beautiful it is.  We really enjoy it here.  Take a look at their website, www.rialtoharbor.com to see what we mean.  They have a beautiful swimming pool which we love to sit by and read our books.

Two exciting happenings -- Sunday, while at anchor, Matt was adding a line and retying the dinghy to the swim platform and he manged to turn it loose.  It began floating away from us.  He wanted to start up the Monkey Business and go after it.  I thought that wasn't a good idea.  He won.  We deftly pulled up the anchor and  slowly approached the dinghy and I hooked it with the boat hook.  We went back and anchored again -- we thought we were pretty good.   During the nights of anchoring one should get up every few hours to see if you are still "holding."  I was up around 4:00 a.m. one night and while walking down the side deck I held on to the rails.  I didn't know it, but a wasp was also holding on to the rail at the same place.  He decided that he would bite me.  So, here we are at that early hour on the internet trying to figure out what to do.  It swelled up and hurt, but eventually settled down and began to itch.  What was the wasp doing up at that hour (or did I wake him up)?

We are going to have company this weekend and maybe next week.  We like seeing people. 

The most exciting news is that my cousin, Phil Morgan, is home after a year in Afghanistan.  He was a contract worker for a private security company as a forensic photographer.  We are so proud of him and are especially glad he is back in the good old USA. 

Some of you may wonder how we are getting exercise on the boat.  While we were in Stuart, the marina had a great gym which we used frequently.  We also walked a lot.  On the boat we have a Wii machine with a Fitness Plus program.  It has balance exercises, strength training, aerobics, yoga and games (also Jeopardy game).  It is fun and I think helpful.  It is interesting doing the balance games while the boat is rocking back and forth after a wake. 

Until next time.

Dinghy ashore with Monkey Business in fog in background

Judy (with lots of help from Matt)

AT LONG LAST PICTURES -- SORRY NOT IN ORDER (DUMB PROGRAM)

Leaving Lake Okeechobee - shallow around Clewiston

Cars on side of road on waterway

Sunrise/Fog

White Heron

Cows seen along Waterway

Rialto Harbor Marina

View of River from Monkey Business at Rialto

Matt at Rialto

Dorothy and Bill Taylor with us at Loggerhead/Stuart

St. Lucie Lock

Captain Matt has breakfast on the way

BEAUTIFUL DAY AT RIALTO HARBOR

We are sitting in the most beautiful place and are finally relaxed!  What a setting.  We just walked into a little town and had homemade pizza.  The marina people are going to bring a grill over tonight and light a oak fire for us to cook our dinner on.  It doesn't get much better than this. 

We have terrible internet service here, so I will not be able to send any pictures until we get to a better place.  Sorry about that, but I will send them as soon as I can.  Hope I don't bore you with too many as we have some really great ones. 

Until later.

Judy

AT LAST WE ARE "ON THE ROAD" (OR WATER, IF YOU WILL)

This may be a long, detailed blog, but we have so much to say.  Some of it will be our experiences, our thoughts, and even a geography lesson.  Hope you like it. 

We left Loggerhead Marina in Stuart on Monday around 11:00 -- the dock was filled with about 20 friends we had made (and Bill and Dorothy Taylor from Wexford) to help us and to wish us well.  We only went around 10 miles that day.  We did go through our first lock - the St. Lucie Lock into the St. Lucie Canal.  Because of the low water level in Lake Okeechobee the lock is now opening every two hours.  We were aiming for the 1:00 opening, but got there around noon.  We called them and they said that boats coming the other way had already called, so our side would open about 1:20.  We just motored back and forth for all that time.  We were the only boat in it at the time, and the water level went up around 13 feet.  We handled it great.  We pulled into River Forrest Yachting Center (technically still in Stuart) around 2:00.  It is a U-shaped basin that is mainly used for off-season storage, so there were only 3 boats in there (we were the only one occupied -- that was okay with us).  Two very nice dockhands helped us dock.  We were proud of our first day out.

Tuesday morning we knew that a storm was coming in the late afternoon, so we wanted to get to our next stop before then.  We should have studied it more and not left.  It was very windy.  We went through the Port Mayaca lock which seemed like a wind tunnel.  We had a very hard time getting to the side to pick up the ropes to hold us while the water ascended a few feet to lake level.  The lock operator was not very nice and didn’t help, except to yell at us that we were moving too fast when in fact we were in neutral trying to maintain control.  That’s all we needed.  After the lock we entered Lake Okeechobee.  It was extremely windy and rough with whitecaps.  It is not very well marked and is shallow in lots of areas, so it was difficult.  We motored around 35 miles southwest across the lake.  We then entered Caloosahatchee Canal, which was wide and deep and easy to travel, except it was still very windy.  About three miles after we got off the lake, we went into the Moore Haven Lock.  Very similar conditions to the previous lock (but still the only boat in it).  We were getting flustered by then.  We travelled about ten more miles and pulled into another River Forrest facility outside of LaBelle.  We were the only boat in there.  We had a strong tail wind and should have turned around to dock into the wind, but we were just so ready for the long day to be over with that we tried to dock with the wind to our back.  Three very strong dockhands helped us in, but we could have made it so much easier.  The people there could not have been nicer.  There was not much going on, so I think they were bored.  Several of them kept offering to go to the store for us (they don’t know me very well -- I have enough food on this boat for at least a month).  We were exhausted and frustrated so went to bed early.  The storm did arrive in the evening with lots of thunder, lightning and rain.  There was even a tornado watch.  We picked the wrong day to travel.  From now on, we will be better about picking what days to travel.  We should have known when we were the only boat westbound that day. 

Wednesday morning we woke up to remnants of the storm.  It was not a nice day, so we decided to stay there another day.  We needed that day to relax.  The day before had been much too long and too stressful.  We relaxed and enjoyed our time there. 

Thursday we awoke to fog.  We waited around for it to clear up so left there around 11:00.  We immediately entered the Ortona Lock.  We shared this lock with two other boats.  It was such a calm day that it was “a piece of cake”.  What a difference lack of wind makes.  We felt good about this and were ready for a fun day.  After the lock we entered the Caloosahatchee River.  This is an absolutely beautiful, wide, deep river.  Along the banks were beautiful homes, camps, cows in pastures, etc.  Around 2:00 we pulled into the Rialto Harbor Marina in Alva, Florida.  It is a very unique place (look it up at rialtoharbor.com).  It only has about 10 slips -- it is 12 acres with a pool, tennis courts, walking trails, picnic areas and horse barns.  We pulled into a canal going around a small island (one way road) and they wanted us to dock on a 100’ dock with another large boat (with a huge boat on the other side).  We did not feel comfortable doing this, so they said we could have the small dock at the entrance.  Matt expertly backed this monstrous boat of ours back down the channel and docked perfectly.  What a difference when things go right -- also there was no wind.  I think we are going to like being here.

Before we left this morning a large black crow flew into our boat.  We couldn’t get him out.  He kept flying from one window to the other pecking on the glass.  He also “used the bathroom” all over our beige couch.  After our bad day on Tuesday, we were afraid that this was a bad omen.  Thankfully, it was not -- just a mess.  Matt finally threw a towel over the bird and “escorted” him out the saloon door and he flew away minus some tail feathers.

We had some good experiences, some great experiences, and some bad experiences.  We hope all of them are learning experiences.  We did learn a lot and now know that we have a lot more to learn. 

Now for the geography lesson.  In the 1950’s, Federal money was used (probably stimulus money) to create a waterway across the State of Florida so boats would not have to travel around the tip.  They took the existing St. Lucie River on the east (which comes off the Atlantic Ocean), dug the St. Lucie Canal, took the existing Lake Okeechobee, dug the Caloosahatchee Canal, and used the Caloosahatchee River into the Gulf of Mexico and made it part of the Intracoastal Waterway.  We are attaching a map which may show it better than we are explaining it. 

Attached are some pictures highlighting our trip so far.  The last ones, taken here at Rialto, show why it makes all this worthwhile. (Attention:  I am not able to attach photos now -- I'll send them later.)

We have not been able to see any comments people make on this blog.  We suggest you just email us with comments.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEG!

Matt and I want to wish our dear friend Peg Slaugh a very happy 97th birthday.  She is an amazing woman that we both love and admire.  By the way, she is spending the day playing bridge and eating dark chocolate truffles -- her secret to longevity.

Attached is a picture -- sorry it is so old, but it is the only one we have on the computer.

Have a great day, Peg.

Love, Judy and Matt

Matt, Peg and Judy,  Christmas 2006 -- she hasn't aged since then, but we have.