We are outta hereya!

We decided to head out on our big trip today, so we scooped Danny out of school at 1:15 pm and were on the boat by 1:45 and off the dock by 1:50!! We hope to be in Jacksonville by Saturday barring any unforseen circumstances. We will keep the boat at the naval marina. Can't believe that when we get back home next week we will only have TWO WEEKS till we move :O


Tied off to a dolpin outside the Franklin Lock. We thought it would take us longer to get there and had to wait 45 minutes for the 3:00 opening. This lock only opens twice a day so if we had missed the opening we would have had to wait till 10:00 the next morning.


Entering the Franklin Lock. This lock only raised us up about 1 foot. Danny was very excited to get to hold onto the line and help us! There are two other boats ahead of us.


The lock gate closing behind - goodbye Fort Myers!


Leaving the lock to head out on our great adventure!!


Taking a breather - all this excitement :) Poor thing had a horrible night last night because of her teething.


A fish trap off the side of the intercoastal round about Alva. The houses on the river were beautiful!


This is one of the really old bridges over the intercoastal. Once we called to request an opening we had to wait while the traffic was stopped and the bridge tender walked from her house to the center of the bridge, unlock the control box and then hand operate the mechanism.


This is a picture taken as we headed out of the Ortona Lock. I would have taken a picture while we were inside but I had a death grip on the stern line to keep the boat from moving too much. The water raised us 6 1/2 feet inside this lock!! It was incredible watching the other gate open up about 2 feet and having the water on the other side above our heads!!

We decided to not go all the way to Morehaven to anchor as the smoke from the fires around Lake Okeechobee made it miserable to breath. We stopped about 5 statute miles upriver and dropped anchor in the middle of the intercoastal.
All told we left our marina at 2:00 and dropped anchor at 6:30. We were all pretty tired so we just had pb & j sandwiches and all climbed into our bed and watched the sun set, the moon rise and the stars come out. Danny passed out at 8:00 and Victoria was soon after!
Dan & I sat in the cockpit and had a cold beer and relaxed!
We had a great breeze and opened up all the windows and fell asleep quickly!
Tomorrow is the big day as we finally cross Lake Okeechobee!! Please pray the water is deep enough and we don't do any damage to the boat! We are a bit nervous! :)
We traveled 41 statute miles in 7 hours. We traveled from North Fort Myers to Moorehaven.