On the Water with As You Wish: Feb 29 Leaving Ft. Myers and on to Labelle

Feb 29

On our last evening in Ft Myers we were granted a final farewell with yet another spectacular Gulf coast sunset. We thoroughly enjoyed our time over the last two months here. The folks at Ft. Myers Yacht Basin were super accommodating in finding us a slip at the last minute so we could stay here. Being just a block off the river district with all it has going on with dining and entertainment provided us plenty to see and do. While our monthly slip rental has us paid through the middle of next week, the weather forecast looks better for crossing Lake Okeechobee if we start the journey today. It’s a several days trek to get across Florida taking this route. We’re in Labelle tonight. Then Clewiston Sunday, and crossing the lake on Mon. Then slowly making our way to Ft Pierce for the weekend.

One final gulf coast sunset. Onward to east coast sunrises.

We finally got out of our slip at 9AM after a frustrating start to the morning when our secondary navigational program called Navionics kept crashing. It’s an app we run on a tablet which had worked perfectly for 10 months up until this point. Deleted the app and then reinstalled. Then downloaded the charts for Florida which all took time. Then it still crashed. Decided to just use a different app called Aquamaps we had loaded on the tablet but realized I needed to install some additional map sections so spent more time doing that. I could have just used the main Garmin chartplotter but I’ve gotten used to having the redundancy of a second set of charts. Anyway, we left the dock using the Garmin and Aquamaps app. Weird thing was that after several hours I tried starting up the Navionics app and it decided to work just fine. We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings!

Leaving Ft. Myers and the Yacht Basin in our wake.

Today we headed east on the Caloosahatchee River. At our planned 8AM departure time there was barely a wisp of wind. By 9AM it was already blowing a steady 15-20. For the first hour the river was fairly wide, so we were feeling those winds and choppy waters. Then the river narrows and the chop went away and we only felt an occasional gust. It was mostly pleasant cruising passing everything from multi-million dollar waterfront homes, to cattle ranches, to orange groves, to undeveloped palm tree lined wooded areas. Very light traffic with just an occasional passing boat. It’s been awhile since we’ve encountered them but there are several locks we’ll need to transit. We hit the first one today - the Franklin lock lifted us up all of 2 feet! It was interesting. Rather than water coming in through pipes and filling the chamber, they simply partially open the front gates and let the water flow in. Only other thing of interest on the waterway was a swing bridge at Fort Denaud we radioed for an opening. Very accommodating bridgetender had it done in no time.

Entering Franklin lock - pretty routine for us by now

Cattle chillin' by the water

Orange groves - these still had oranges waiting to be picked

Fort Denaub swing bridge opening for us

We got parked in Labelle by midafternoon not without some difficulty. Stern in, no finger piers, pilings only at mid ship, wind blowing on our side negating the efforts of our bow thruster. At least there wasn’t any current to make it even tougher. Can't complain too much as the city does provide these docks, water and power all for free to transient boaters. After finally getting settled in we took a tour of the town. Pretty small place. It was an agricultural hub built at the turn of the century to support the cattle ranching and orange farming. Only a few historic building on main street and most are in need of some help. We did find a good local family owned honey store. Interesting selection of flavors depending on the time of year and where they set their hives. Orange blossom (always a favorite), palmetto (very mild), mangrove (a bit darker with a bite), wildflower (yeah – flowery) and a few others. Picked up some of the first two. We were checking our phones for a place to eat and up pops The Labelle Brewery. Just opened last October. So off we go. Nice new building. A dozen local brews on tap and a Buckingham Farms Restaurant on site. We split a flight, ordered food, and went back for a pint of their Saison to go with my grilled chicken, applewood bacon, gouda cheese and grilled onions sandwich.

The Honey Store - since 1954. Pretty cool mural.

Labelle is called the “City Under the Oaks”. The town seal is a silhouette of a giant live oak and the place is loaded with them. Reminded me of Johns Island by Charleston with them all draped in Spanish moss and bromeliads. Our mile walk back to the boat gave us a chance to enjoy their beauty before settling in for the night.