And then..........

Hi y'all!  What's new?  Sorry, I left you hanging, but there wasn't much to report.  We had been hanging out in Stuart, Florida, at a place called the crossroads.  That's the intersection of the Intracoastal waterway ( north and south), the St. Lucie River west (to the Okeechobee waterway,) and the St Lucie inlet (or outlet, depending on which way you are going I guess) which you can use to hit the great Atlantic Ocean and can head for the Bahamas, or go north or south on the outside (non ICW).

We sat and evaluated our options.  As we were originally headed for the Keys, that was the first choice.  However, after several days in the narrow ICW it seemed we were the only boat heading south and the steady stream of boats heading north made for a not fun passage.  As Brent and Susan say, if you're not having fun, don't do it.   We thought about going outside and south, but we needed a weather window to be in the ocean.  Not to mention the Gulf Stream.  More on that later.  Also, as we had left to go south pretty late, with our delay in the yard and needing a weather window, that would not have left us much time in the Keys, and to go that far for a short time made us wonder if it was worth it.

Second choice would have been to head for the Bahamas.  That sounds like the really cool (and obvious) choice, but we really needed a weather window for that.  We waited and watched, but it didn't look like a window was coming anytime soon.  After reading up on riding the gulf stream we were sure we didn't want to go on that ride wrong!  The gulf stream is an ocean current that runs to the north.  Not bad if you're heading north, but the winds mostly blow south, which can make for a nasty ride. So, you're supposed to wait for the winds to blow north with the gulf stream current, and that wasn't supposed to happen any time soon.  

Third choice was to cross Okeechobee and head back to Fort Myers and the Gulf ICW.  Though that is the way we came from last year, it is an easy jump to the Keys and back if we chose to, depending on weather windows.

Fourth choice was to turn around, follow the boats heading north and go back to Jacksonville and then head north on the ICW from there in June.  As we had just come from that way, we quickly eliminated that idea.

Soooooo.......West it is!

We left Stuart and headed up the St. Lucie River through the St Lucie lock and towards Okeechobee.  This is a mostly straight and relatively (for Florida) deep passage, and an easy (if there is such a thing) boat trip.  A stop at Indiantown gives us an easy jumping off spot to cross Lake Okeechobee early in the day, as it can be a very rough ride in the afternoon winds and thunderstorms.  Weather looks good.  Will we make it?  We'll let you know!

ps: if we don't let you know we probably didn't make it.  But, even if we sink to the bottom the top of the boat will be out of the water so we won't get our feet wet whilst waiting for rescue so we probably will make it.


Okeechobee dead ahead!  (in forty miles or so......)

Stuart back that a way......'bout ten miles or so.......

'Merica........