Franklin Lock Marina and Park

Friday January 11, 2013
26 43.390 N
81 41.461 W

"We" scratched the boat today. Its not that bad but it frustrates me that I make these mistakes. We were heading into a lock on the Chattahoochee river. The lock master told us "any side" and we were set up for port so I decided port. But as we entered the lock the wind caught Tide Hiker and I just could not move her close enough port side for Deidre to grab a line. So I decided to let the wind blow us the other way and called down to Deidre to move the fenders to starboard side. But now the problem was reversed and I had a hard time holding her off the starboard wall. Deidre got one fender in at the stern and I ran out to tend to the bow. That was my mistake. If I had stayed put I could have used the bow thruster to keep her off. The forward rub rail touched the dock ever so softly, but 30 tons of boat running into the immovable concrete wall, even so slowly, popped the paint on the rub rail. DAMN.

Otherwise it was a good but long day. We had planned for 42 NM day ending up in a little town called La Belle. We had 2 alternate plans for the night in the area. It's a river/canal so there are not a lot of anchorage choices. But when we arrived at about 4 PM it turned out that neither alternative would work, so we had to continue on. The next possible spot was a Corp of Engineers camp ground that had a small marina attached, about 14 miles ahead. Sunset was at 5:50 PM, we would arrive at about 6:15 PM. I used the satellite image of the approach and docks on the iPad - we were the little blue ball.

Mostly pellicans

The track around the lake had been a bit boring, but the ride along the waterway was rather pleasant. As we moved west the waterway changed from mostly man made to mostly river. We had seen plenty of bird life, but only one alligator and he dived before I could get the camera. Much of our surrounds had been swamp or sugar cane farms. During the morning we had seen several columns of smoke that we concluded to be burning sugar fields. Sure enough, ash started to land on the boat and make quite a mess.

The marina camp ground turned out to be good value. With our senior card, just $12 per day, including water and electricity. We are now only 12 miles from Ft. Myers so will probably stay here a couple of nights.

In the photo on the left shows us running the boat on dry land, per the chart plotter. This bothers me, it cannot be good for the paint on the keel!

Saturday & Sunday January 12 & 13, 2013

Nice spot!

We stayed two more nights., planning to leave on Monday Morning so we can meet Kylie in Ft Myers some time in the afternoon.