Monday, 22 December 54.9 SM
Captain Tom‘s the only other vessel sharing the lake.
The air is thick with a singular fragrance, one not experienced in all these many months underway. It is carried to the cockpit by a ten knot so’easterly rolling over the central Florida landscape. It is the unmistakable pungent aroma of moist earth, rich loam somewhere off to port, unseen beyond the levee that lines the south side of the Okeechobee Canal.
There was none of this to start the day, at 0730 when lines were retrieved from dolphins fore-and-aft so Steadfast could head into the Port Mayaca Lock. Once raised 12’, the gates opened and she was out into Lake Okeechobee for a 25-mile crossing to Clewiston. That wind is put to work when the genny’s rolled out, letting Red loaf along at 2000 RPM but keeping speeds (over ground) in the sixes. It also carries soot—big black chunks of it—now and again from field fires on the far off horizon.
Worth noting is the only marker for 20 miles!
The lake is wide enough that smoke from the two or three fires is about all that can be seen on the horizon. Other than water, that is. There is an east-bound hull but otherwise, Steadfast is alone out here. By the time she passes R#6—ten miles out, the only marker on the way across—the lake’s distant eastern bank is no more than a smudge. Despite her size, even at it’s deepest, the lake bed today is only 13 feet below.
Stalking the marsh for a take-out lunch.
Finally, G#7 appears ahead, the next mark just a mile-and-a-half away, the next closer still and so forth until the open lock to Clewiston and Roland Martin’s Marina, just about the only fuel dock between Stuart and Fort Myers. Her thirst slaked, Red swings back into action and the welcomed fragrance of soil first appears.
The canal from here deepens, first 15 feet, then 18 or 20. It’s a long leg, today’s transit, but the depth makes it more relaxing than some others along the way. There’s a slight delay while the lock fills at Moore Haven to lower Steadfast four feet down to the canal on the other side.
Old Florida is a colorful cottage on the water.
This it is said is the “old Florida,” the Florida of the Fifties maybe. Simple crossroads and towns now and again, cottages of concrete block or plywood siding here and there. But no planned developments, no gated communities. There are birds, even a few black bulls along the shore, but otherwise it’s mile after mile of palms on the steep 20’ banks, marsh grass in the flats.
Then, the sun closing on the coconut palms along the west bank, Steadfast rounds a broad curve and there to starboard is the night’s mooring, again courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers. Just before the Ortona Lock, another set of dolphins rife with their own pungent aroma, that of creosote.
Two more locks tomorrow, and a couple of bascule bridges to clear, along the 50 or so miles remaining to Fort Myers where it is hoped Steadfast will enjoy the holidays.
Steadfast out.
At Sea with Steadfast 
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