West across the OWW

5/4/09 through 5/10/09



Peck Lake to Fort Myers



Author: Doug


We had an uneventful, though long crossing from Peck Lake near Stuart through the Okeechobee Waterway, very different from our trip East. In the time we were gone the weather changed from winter to early summer. The devil's mud puddle was calm, instead of short steep 4 footers and the locks were still instead of wind tunnels.


This time we stayed in Clewiston at Roland Martin's Marina, an OK place, there were three or four other boats tied up there. The water level was down to 5 feet in the channel and we had to wait for both the St. Lucie and Franklin locks, as they were on restricted openings to conserve water. There is a really nice lock master at the Franklin lock which is near Fort Myers. He remembered us from our East bound trip and spoke with us for a while about our trip and traveling with kids. The Caloosahatchee river was packed with rolling tarpon.

Jen and the boys drove back home on the 7th and I stayed in Fort Myers, catching up on work and doing boat tasks.

We had been having issues holding a charge on our new house bank, so I rewired the alternator on the port side (necessitating a ten mile round trip bike ride to West Marine) thinking it was the problem then found out that that alternator wasn't putting out power at all.

I also adjusted the hinges on the fridge which seemed to help. Then I did an oil and filter change and changed the fuel filters on both engines. Since clean fuel is so important to diesels, I was really glad to see that the fuel filters were very clean after 150 engine hours, much of it in rough water which would stir up anything in our tanks if they were dirty.


The day we packed the boat to head for the Bahamas I stood by the bulkhead dividing the forward cabin (where the boy's sleep) from the galley, "the mess stops here, no mess aft of this bulkhead," I said, "but you can do whatever you want with your cabin." Well, they took me at my word, in a remarkably short time the two shelves (one for Bryce, one for Simon) in their clothes locker had merged into one, and they were wearing each other's clothes, no mean feat for Bryce who is 4 years older.

One day Jen, after working up the courage to pass the forward bulkhead barrier yelled out "it smells like a gerbil in here!" Instead of cleaning their cabin Bryce and Simon decided it would be easier to create an imaginary gerbil named Bob, who lived in Simon's pillow, thereby explaining the smell.

It took me a while, and quite a bit of cleaning spray to get the forward cabin clean.

My parents drove all the way home from North Carolina Saturday, arriving late that night and I was able to spend Mother's Day morning with my mom, a real treat for me.