Okeechobee Waterway

We headed Northbound, on the Gulf side, to Ft Meyers, to enter the Okeechobee Waterway ( OWW ).

The OWW is over 150 miles long (ca.250km) , has a handful of locks and several bridges, the lowest at 48 feet in the up position. We chose to cross Florida at that point, instead of waiting for a weather window in Key West which was not coming anytime soon...

Just past Ft Meyers we got the chance to meet our wonderful summer neighbors from Michigan, George and Beverly and enjoyed a great birthday dinner! 🎉🎂

We ended spending the night at a Marina there, as Ft Meyers' marinas and anchorages were devastated by hurricane Ian. Nowhere to tie up to either.

We even got the chance to meet up with our good friends from Venice Louisiana, Marlyn and Rolf, a couple of days later, who were headed westbound after acquiring a sailboat on the East Coast, S/V Spray! Spent the night at anchor, at a beautiful anchorage, where we met Mick's friends Vaughn who took us food shopping!

So very grateful for wonderful friends! And family!❤️

The OWW is beautiful!

Partially manmade, it is freshwater after the first lock, and it is full of alligators, beautiful mangroves and cyprus trees.

It's also given the nickname "the ditch".

We had some beautiful anchorages/tie off points while going through the OWW.

The Lake Okeechobee crossing took us about 5 hours, with some motor sailing as the winds mostly were not in our favor and we didn't have much room in this very shallow lake to freely let Glacier Gem go. The navigational channel was pretty tight, narrow.

We very much enjoyed the Okeechobee Waterway and the Lake!

Onto the Intracoastal Waterway ( ICW) , we go! Southbound, on the Atlantic side.