The Great Loop Begins

Hallowell, March 17, 2015 

View to our back deck

Fort Meyers, March 18, 2015  Back deck of Snow Goose!

What a difference a day makes!

We are happy to be met by Janet and Ansley who have been breaking in the boat for us, they brought it from the east coast to the west. Its an interesting thing about boats, the balance between items checked off the “to do” list, and the items added appears to be in perfect equilibrium.

Nonetheless we made our official start of the Great Loop on March 19, 2:20 PM. heading east on the Okeechobee Waterway to join the Inter Coastal Waterway in Stuart. The first portion of of the Okeechobee is the Caloosahalchee Canal. We puttered past homes grand and modest, but for the most part it's undeveloped with mangroves, a dense underbrush with intermittent dry pasture and lots of cows, lounging in amiable clusters beneath the occasional shade trees.

March 20 at the Moore Haven “city” marina. Janet and I gave the bikes a try on the sleepy streets.
 


 We discovered this great house o’ beer bottles. The gent who owes it plans to continue the ornamentation around all sides, as time permits, and no, he doesn’t drink all the beer,  people bring him empties. Also heard about the boy who made national news a few years back when swimming the canal and a gator took his arm off. When asked by a reporter what possessed him to swim in the infested waters he replied, "well there’s not much to do in Moore Haven." Which does appear to be true.

Scenes from Moores Haven

The way into Lake Okeechobee is a truly beautiful wetland with tons of birds wading at the edge, soaring about, perching in trees.

The lake itself is huge, and shallow, but dredged and marked. We were blessed with a calm crossing.

The St Lucie River is the eastern passage, out to the Atlantic. Larger trees, still very little boat traffic and lots of undeveloped land.

We spent the night at the Indian River Marina (where Joel and Ansley spent the entire month of February working on the boat) A bit funky, but a very friendly and pleasant spot. This the ‘gator off our boat in the morning.

Now we are Stuart for a few days replacing a defective chart plotter ( a supper duper chart plotter), and awaiting better weather (its not that bad actually).  Here is a map of the full deal.

We have done the W to E across Florida

Cheers
Sarah