It seems Mother Nature
has put a slight alteration in our plans this weekend.
After a rocking and rolling night at the dock in
windy Stuart last night, I wasn't quite sure what the morning would bring. With
a close eye on the weather I had hopes we might get in front of the high
pressure system that was impacting the entire eastern coast of Florida. Winds
were about 15 knots early this morning which isn't all that bad considering we
would be in the Okeechobee Waterway canals for much of the trip west. The main
concern was running the actual lake, which is about 35 miles across the middle
and an expansive and exposed body of water. But to do that, we had to get
through two locks on the east side first, and then three more locks on the west
side.
About 8am there appeared to be a small but good
weather window for us to cross Okeechobee. So we left Sunset Bay and headed
west. As we approached the St. Lucie lock and requested lockage we were
informed that they had just put the locks on restricted openings and would only
open three times during the day at 7am, 1pm, 7pm. Unfortunately, I didn't know
that until we arrived at the lock at 830am. Since the weather still seemed
cooperative, we decided to wait. We dropped the anchor (yes, right in the
middle of the canal), shut down the engines and just sat there.
However, within the next 2 hours, the winds
started to pick up, and the forecast was revised from 15-20 knot winds to 20-30
knots and gusts approaching gale force (40+ mph) with LOTS of rain. That
changed everything. So, as much as we tried to beat it, Mother Nature won out and
we returned to Stuart for another rocking night (or two) before we try again.
It looks like now, Sunday is going to be even worse, so Monday may be our next
chance to attempt the crossing.
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| Winds at 40mph moving west |
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