Old Rosie in the Bahamas: Scenes from the Okeechobee Waterway and Pine Island Sound -March 5- 16

To motor across Forida, the St. Lucie Canal flows into Lake Okeechobee, which joins the Rim Route along the bottom of the lake to the Caloosahatchee river and into San Carlos Bay on the Gulf side.
Lake Okeechobee covers about 730 square miles of water ranging in depths from 6 to 14 feet. Route 1 cuts across the southeastern corner from Port Mayaca to Clewiston, took us about 3 hours.
This map is from Claiborne S. Young's Cruising Guide.

The birds like this marker!

On the south shore, smoke billows from burning sugar cane

The Clewiston Hurricane Gate

And on through the Okeechobee Waterway- levees on the south- construction going on here,

Tall grasses. scrub trees and wildlife on the north.
That little bump in the water is an alligator about to go under the surface. We saw numerous alligators along this section, but they are about as hard to photograph as the dolphins.

Scenes from the canal and Caloosahatchee.
We tied up to "dolphins" that are by the locks... normally used by commercial barges.

Sometimes the Swing bridge is closed and you have to wait for a train to cross.

Anchorage in Glover Bight - on the west side

Enjoying a coconut-chocolate gelato.

See Old Rosie over there? We were just a short dinghy ride from Tarpon Point Marina and Marina Village Resort.

Still loving the sunsets

Pine Island Sound has lots of shallows and little islands...have to be sure to stay in the channel or you are in 2 feet -very skinny water.
Osprey nests are everywhere.