Scott here. Pretty darn easy day today, although it didn’t always feel like that! On paper, it looks easy. In real life not so much.

As you saw by Rita’s earlier post the morning was beautiful and Jazzy wanted us to see the sunrise. Not even thinking about it last night we took her for her night time walk around 4:30 pm. At 5:00 am she told us she wanted (or needed) to go for a walk.

Get dressed, drop the dinghy (I like to lift it up at night as it would be harder to steal) and hop in. We sort of remembered where the park dock was at since it was pretty dark. Tie up and finally she can go do her duty. We take a pretty good walk and get her back to the boat so we can go get Rita a cup of coffee and a little breakfast. Awesome!!

We head out at 8:42 am, one of our latest times, which is OK since we only have 36 miles or so to do today. Our first lock was only an hour away or so. The wind picked up and these locks they drop lines down and Rita grabs the bow line and I run in back for the aft line. Well, the bow line was cut so it was short and the wind was blowing us away from the wall. I run up front to relive Rita and she takes the aft. I could barely hold on as we were going up. There was one boat in front of us, some jerk who waked us big time getting to the lock using his engines to keep his aft in sending even more water our way pushing us away from the wall. And, the water coming into the lock was trying to push us away as well. Needless to say, we both got a work out in and this lock met Rita’s determination of “slightly terrifying” and my top 5 most hated locks so far.

Just before the Julian Keen Jr Lock in Moore Haven we had to wait 20-30 minutes for a railroad bridge to open. It is always open unless a train is coming. Some railroad guy has to get there before the train and move the bridge for the train then back open for boaters. The 2nd lock was immediately following and we were the only boat in there, but the wind continued to give us a workout.

We are finally out of the rivers and on the “Rim Route”. This waterway is called the “Rim Canal”, this canal goes from Moore Haven to Port Mayaca around the southern part of Lake Okeechobee. See the image below.

Tomorrow we will be going through the lake and not on the Rim Route to save a day. See tomorrow’s float plan post for more details.

We decided to stay in a marina this evening. We liked the idea of a pool to relax and a loaner car to run some errands. The pool was dirty and unusable and they no longer have the loaner car (update your website people!!) That was frustrating. So, we are cooking in and enjoying our time together.

If you’re a stat’s person, I am finally getting to how the plan went today. I guess I just had a lot to say this evening!

Plan v ACTUAL
Date: November 21, 2023
Nebo Link: Click here
Crew: Captain Scott, 1st Mate Rita, & K9 Jazzy
Start at: 8:30 am ACTUAL 8:42 AM
End at: 2:05 pm (4:05 travel time + 3 locks) ACTUAL 2:11 PM
Total Time: 5:35 hours ACTUAL 5:29 HOURS
Distance: 36.8 miles ACTUAL 37.6 MILES

I will admit I am continuously amazed at how close the plan and actual are to each other.

Future warning: My float plans and stats may not get posted daily as we will have limited internet access in the Bahamas. We are working with our cell phone carriers (Rita with Verizon and Scott with T-Mobile) as well as looking at a Bahamas phone and data plan.