Torry Island Free Town Dock

Thursday January 19, 2013
26 42.197 N
80 42.937 W

Woke with somewhat of a sensitive head this morning, do not understand that. Nevertheless we were underway by 8:30 AM with out cruise plan calling for two locks and 49 NM, so quite a big day. Weather forecast was OK though calling for 15-20 mph winds during the afternoon, calming to 10-15 mph this evening.

Hang on Deidre!!

We were soon out of the river and into the first lock of the canal system. This lock lifted us 16' and took about 20 minutes. We were the only boat in the lock and all went well. The canal was "canal-ish" cutting thru swamp and mangrove alternating with farm land. By 3 PM we had arrived at the lock that let us out into the lake. This lock lifted us a mighty 2". (Not a typo, just two inches.)

The swing railway bridge

We also had a couple of lifting railroad bridges to pass. They are typically up and open, just closed when there was a train coming. To our dismay the first such bridge closed as we approached. Usually they are automatic, but I tried the radio to get details. To my surprise we received an immediate response to our call, that was something like: "Sorry about that! The train is on its way but if you hurry I will open the bridge and let you through!" We sure hurried, Deidre had visions of a four locomotive freight train slamming on its \brakes as it approached the open bridge at 75 MPH.

We must have been protected in the canal for as soon as we hit the lake the wind hit us. My new hat went straight overboard – it was a Christmas present from Deidre. (It was sorta inevitable - I left it at the restaurant last night and the waiter had to chase us down with it.) The wind was quite strong, but mostly on our beam and so in effect was just a nuisance. We hugged the east shore (it was an east wind) and so the water was still reasonably flat. We had about 20 miles to cover.

Too fast....

Lake Okeechobee is the Bass Fishing Capital of America, so we are told. And people who fish for bass drive bass fishing boats. BFB tend to be about 25' long, flat on top, painted with sparkly paint and powered by one or two enormous outboards. They are driven at 80 MPH or more wherever they go. I have no idea why this is the case, although maybe bass fish can swim really fast? I suspect the BFB owners also own assault rifles, but that is just a guess. Anyway, we were passed by a bunch of these boats today and I tried to take a photo but they go too fast to get a decent photo. I have included my best results below.

Hand operated swing bridge

We had picked out an anchorage that would be a bit tight, now especially so because the wind was forecast to swing from East to West during the night. There was a small town on the way that offered a city dock for free, and we planned to check out to see if we could fit. To get to the dock we had to go through a hand powered swing bridge – no kidding. We called them on the radio but the guy who operated the bridge was cutting his lawn and could not hear the phone, so someone had to go “fetch him”. But after a 20 minute delay he arrived and the bridge was duly opened.

A little tight

The dock was probably a bit small for Tide Hiker but by now I was pretty keen to make it work. So we did, and here we are, although our bow is nestled in the water hyacinth that grows by the shore.