Hunkered Down

It rained hard last night and although it is sunny out, it is chilly and windy. With temps headed for the forties tonight, this has been a good day to hunker down inside the bus. I know, this is nothing compared to weather on the home front.

Did some reading and finally finished my latest Wilbur Smith book, Blue Horizon. A great read!

Wilbur Smith is perhaps the finest adventure writer of all time. His books are spellbinding and are written in an accurate historical context. The best part is that he has written dozens of them. If you like historical fiction, then get on board with this guy. You won't be sorry!

Boat watch on a quiet day:

I found an old post that I want to share which shows us locking through the lock here back in 2013 on our 38 ft. sailboat, Cross Roads.
Read and enjoy this post from yesteryear, February of 2013.

Here's a picture of us arriving at Indiantown Marina today.  I guess you could say we look a little disheveled.

We made it safely under the Palm City Bridge this morning but scraped the antenna on the under side s we went through.  I did some hard swallowing. Then we managed four more "short" bridges (55 feet) and the St. Lucie Lock which lifted us 13 feet. All in all a good day for us and now we are safely tucked into the marina here at Indiantown with a nasty cold front moving in.  You folks up north will be pleased to hear there are freeze warnings posted for tomorrow night!!!

We are feeling a little worn out right now from battling the waterway and plan to stay a while at Indiantown.  Here are today's pictures: The first shows a bridge gauge indicating we can make it. My boat needs 54.6 feet of clearance. It's close!

Here is a shot on the Okeechobee.

Coming in to St. Lucie Lock

 We are still at bottom of lock in this one:

 At the top...13 ft. later

Joanna wanted me to add the fact that we saw our first two gators today.  The first of many!  Finally, here is a shot of us pulling into the marina.

Notice Joanna in the back of the boat checking her internet signal on the laptop!

Footnote: As it turned out back in 2013, that was as far as our cruise would go. I was very ill with a viral infection of my heart and we had to abandon our trip across the Okeechobee. I did eventually recover and we sailed home to North Carolina the following year.