Jul 07

Leg 2 – Day 1 – Good Bye Cape Harbour – Hello Adventure

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Today, after 5 years, 7 months, and 14 days, Two Far Gone left her current home port of Cape Harbour Marina, in Cape Coral, Florida to begin the second leg of the Great Loop Adventure. The stay at Cape Harbour was years longer than expected but life’s circumstances led to a changed timeframe. Better late than never.

To say the least, it was a crazy morning!! After close to a sleepless night and wakeup alarms at 4 am, we arrived at the marina early morning to complete the finishing touches prior to departure. Dick emptied our dock box, took our dock fenders, disconnected our lines, and loaded everything onto the boat – Two Far Gone was full to the brim!

We started the engines at 8:50am and departed Slip 317 for the last time at 9:15 am. Some dear friends (Lotte, Colin and Irene) were there to see us off. Wow – what mixed emotions – excitement about the journey, nervous about the journey’s unknowns, and sadness about leaving Cape Harbour.

After going through Cape Harbour’s tiny lock for the last time, Two Far Gone headed to the Caloosahatchee River and took it eastbound towards Lake Okeechobee. Passing by the Cape Coral Bridge, the MidPoint Bridge, Legacy Marina, and Ft. Myers was very nostalgic. After all that, it was time to turn the page and focus on our adventure.

It was a typical hot and humid Florida summer day – temps in the low 90s and feels like temps in the low 100s. The great news is we did not have wind, rain or thunderstorms! The Caloosahatchee River water temperature started at 92.6 degrees and hit over 100 degrees during the course of today’s cruise. We don’t know how much over 100 it was because our water temperature gauge converted to *** when the temperature exceeded 99.9 degrees.  Crazy!! It was even too hot for the cows – we saw many of them standing in the river to cool off. The nice thing about boating in Florida in July is that there are very few boats out on the water so we had the river all to ourselves.

Today we traveled 83 miles and went through 3 locks. Locks on the Okeechobee Waterway (Caloosahatchee River, Lake Okeechobee, St. Lucie Canal, and St. Lucie River) are smaller than those on the rivers we traversed in Leg 1 of our journey – they are much smaller and do not have pumps to pump the water in and out. Water levels are adjusted by leaving a small opening in the chamber doors on the appropriate side of the lock to let water in or out.  We had a 5 foot rise in the Ortona Lock and was that an experience – the rush of water created quite a whirlpool effect in the lock chamber! We were not expecting to be tossed around so much!

Now that we officially are Loopers again, we watch for other vessels with the AGLA burgees flying on their boats. We came across our first Looper this afternoon – a boat originally from South Carolina. They are close to finishing the Loop but plan to continue and do it again! Can you believe it? Once will be enough for us.

We arrived at our destination in Clewiston, FL – Roland Martin Marina – at 5pm. Clewiston is a small town on the southwest corner of Lake Okeechobee. Roland Martin Marina is a quaint and small marina that is popular for bass fisherman. This marina uses a weather rock to forecast the weather – just like we saw in Guttenberg on our first leg of this journey. The docking situation is an interesting one – there is one long dock on a very narrow and shallow channel. If you come in and dock bow first, you must back all the way out to depart.

After getting settled, we had a quick bite to eat at the marina’s Tiki Bar and crashed very early – like 9pm!! We crashed so hard that the we didn’t hear the loud rock and roll live entertainment that apparently played until after midnight.

Our Bucket List Journey resumes.

Sandy

P.S. Enjoy pictures from today in the Photos section.

 

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