Feb 11

We left Fort Myers Beach at 8:30 and arrived at the City Dock at Labelle at 4:30, passing under several bridges, including one swing bridge, as well as through many Manatee Zones. Elaine also got her experience of locking and we went up a whole 2.5 feet.   We saw a paddle wheel boat also go through the Franklin lock, turn around and come back through it;

Feb 12

On Friday we walked up to the McDonalds for breakfast and then headed out onto the Caloosahatchee River at 9:45 .  We went  through the Ortona lock at about 1130.   The captain claims he saw to gators—but the Admiral missed seeing them- so no pictures   These would be the first gators that were spotted & we’ve been in Florida for over 2 months.  We arrived at the River House Marina in Moore Haven at 1:15 and tied up.

Moorage at this dock is $1 per foot and it’s on the honour system- you take an envelope put in cash and drop it into a locked box.  We actually met Jude, who is taking care of the marina currently and she seemed like nice enough- she refers to Moore Haven as Hooterville.  We went to City Hall which is very close to the dock to find out what they recommended we see in town—not a lot here—the clerk said there was only a couple of restaurants and a Family Dollar and 2 thrift stores.   We went for a walk in search of  lunch – and the first restaurant we stopped at closes between 2 and 5- so we were out of luck as it was 2: 15.  We then went to the Anglers Reef bar.

This place was a bar, restaurant and package store run single handedly by one woman while we were there  we saw a few of the locals including a dog that had a pink tail and toe nails because Valentine’s Day was coming—Go figure! We ordered lunch and had beers while we waited—food was great.  We saw that they had Crown Royal  Northern Harvest  at the bar- so I took this picture as apparently it is pretty scarce in Canada ever since it was named the best Rye in the world.

We had bought a bottle of this earlier in our trip in Appalachicola, but had left it with Kitty Nicolai in Cape Coral as neither of us are Rye drinkers.

There was also signage on the wall- showing what age you had to be to drink here and seeing as how it was Caitlyn’s birthday today- she would have been able to drink here for the past year- as the drinking age is 21.

 

We returned to the boat and enjoyed the sunshine and read on the sundeck.

Feb 13

Saturday morning the sun was shining and there was very little wind.  We’ll continue our trek Eastward today.