Moore Haven to Vero Beach, FL

The lock said it opened at 7. When we looked outside, the gates were open and it was only 6:35! There wasn't much of an elevation change and both gates were open a little bit the whole time. We were through the Julian Keen Jr. Lock and entering Lake Okeechobee at 6:58 AM.

As we entered the lake, we still had 107 miles to travel before we'd cross our Great Loop wake. (When a boat "crosses their wake" it means they made it back to the point where they started, completing their loop.) The girls were still asleep. Moose and I stood on the bow counting alligators. We spotted 87 before we even hit open lake. 🐊 87! It was fun to spot them in the smooth water ahead as we approached, then watch them duck under and disappear as we got closer. That was how we could tell they weren't logs!

The lake itself was a surprise. I expected it to be all swamp, and it wasn't. It was wide open water, nothing like what I'd pictured my entire life. The crossing took about 5 hours from Julian Keen Jr. to the Port Mayaca lock on the east side. 

The gnats were absolutely awful. We busted out the cedar oil in an attempt to keep them off of us and it worked, surprisingly. They stayed off our skin, but they were still all over the boat. Most of them were gone after the Port Mayaca lock.

A note for anyone planning this route: of all the locks we've gone through, in two countries, the locks on the Okeechobee Waterway were run by the rudest and most stringent people we encountered. Just something to know going in.

63 miles to our wake by 2:40. We were out of the St. Lucie Lock at 3:05. Fifteen miles to the AICW from there. We were thankful to be through the locks because the sky was starting to look angry.

Happy Days, a 2007 Endeavour 44, was docked here. We found this out and communicated by yelling across the marina with each other. This marina also took our recycling, which is severely lacking on the loop, so it was exciting to know all our hard work paid off. They also took our trash, but the recycle being recycled always makes me happy.

Stuart has three bridges back to back to get through to the ICW, and the current was strong, but the storm looked like it had moved around us, leaving a double rainbow behind. We anchored at Fritz Island in Vero Beach for the night before our big day tomorrow. 

Locks today: 3

Locks of the summer: 47

Locks of the loop: 161