We’re moving east on the Caloosahatchee river towards Lake Okeechobee. It’s another windy day!
There were two locks and many bridges.
Our first lock was the Franklin. I called ahead and alerted the Lockmaster that we were newbies. She was happy for the call and said she’d help us with our lines and provide some instruction about locking through and the other locks on the system.
Locking wasn’t difficult. We had to hold tight to the lines a couple times due to the wind, but otherwise it was straight forward. Lake Okeechobee is the high point along the way to the west coast of Florida. So we’re getting lift going east which is a little more interesting because we can see the water pouring in as the doors open.
We’re still not making “next stop” decisions until the day of :-). Teri found us a spot at Riverhouse dock in Moore Haven. It was just a long dock on the side of the river with power and water. Pleasant enough.
Just before we walked into town for some Mexican food, a large aluminum commercial catamaran called the Pride of Maui docked a few boats west of us. The home port was listed as Maui, which begs the question….what were they doing on the Caloosahatchee River and how did they get here?
Returning with our Mexican food, the operators of the Pride of Maui were grilling steaks and had their music pumping. We had to pass right by, so Teri jokingly said, “what’s for dinner?”. They immediately insisted we sit with them and fed us a huge and delicious steak!! I felt kind of rude as they were chatting with us so eagerly, but somehow I couldn’t find any of my manners and just feasted on the steak! Teri assures me I wasn’t rude because the conversation was great. They really wanted to share their story, and did.
It’s a custom boat, built specifically for the Pride of Maui crew by a builder near New Orleans. The owner (Scott Turner) brought his crew to run it over to Port Everglades (Ft Lauderdale) where it would be shipped to Maui. The “Pride of Maui” is the name of the boat and also the name of their adventure business that operates out of Maui. It’s quite a business. prideofmaui.com
They were a great group of guys! We had a blast speaking with them. They invited us to Maui and promised a great adventure….so that’s on the list 😉
The Mexican food went into the fridge completely untouched. For those who don’t know, there are very few things more exciting to Teri than knowing the fridge is stocked with quality leftovers!
