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commissioned the boat, then lounged
about in sunny Stuart on Florida’s east
coast while waiting for a favorable
Gulf Stream crossing to the Abacos or
sometimes the Exumas. Those Bahamian
waters are mind-blowing, and nobody
could blame us if we continued that same
migration year after year, as did many of
the sailors we met.
But the wanderlust that brought usall these miles was hard to ignore. So
after we launched Liberte at Indiantown
Marina in early January 2019, we headed
west for new waters. Our fi rst challenge
loomed low. The Port Mayaca Railroad
Bridge, at the eastern entrance to Lake
Okeechobee, is normally listed at 49 feet
above water, and Liberte has an air height
of 49.5 feet, plus instruments. These
numbers haunted my midnight hours,
and lately I’d been obsessively refreshingthe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers link
for Lake Okeechobee water levels (w3.
saj.usace.army.mil/h2o/currentLL.shtml).
A dearth of rainfall would help us sneak
under, and a deluge would make the
bridge impassible.
Plan B was to hire local innovator Billy
the Tipper to heel our boat using drums
lashed to the rail and fi lled with canal
water. I had also schemed various waysto crack the nut ourselves, using, say, the
tender at the end of the boom, loaded
with water or anchor chain. To be honest,
those rinky-dink solutions always ended
badly in my mind’s eye.
We crept up to the bridge, and even
though the website said we had a foot
to spare, it sure looked like a no-go. As
sailors on a Pacifi c Northwest boat, we
had seen very few bridges before arriving
in Florida, and crossing under the GoldenGate Bridge did not prepare us for this.
As Rebecca and I peered skyward, we
had a lively will-we-make-it, no-we-won’t
discussion, but there was no crash as we
went slowly forward, only the tick-tick-
tick of the VHF antenna brushing rusty
railway steel overhead. We were free to
ramble onward.
At nearby Mayaca Locks, we met the
fi rst of the characters who keep this
stretch of waterway rolling. The gruff but
talkative lockmaster with a Texas drawl
entertained us for the few minutes it took
to lock up to Lake Okeechobee. Here,
the numbers were on our side again—the
lake was deep enough. I’d read accounts of
boats crossing in shallow water and high
winds while being dropped onto the keel
in every wave trough, which didn’t sound
like fun. That day we had Goldilocks
conditions. The water was low enough to
get us under the bridge and high enough
to fl oat our 5-foot draft safely.
We even had a nice little afternoon
sail in north winds around 10 knots,
and fi nished the 22-mile crossing just
before sunset, nosing up just outside
the lake to a side tie at Roland and Ann
Martins Marina & Resort just off the
main channel. The dockmaster called me“Captain” and Rebecca “Mrs. Captain.”
He lived aboard a small boat festooned in
American fl ags, and said he was working
the docks until he could save up enough
money to head out again and chase some
sunsets of his own. We of course gave him
a tip for his cruising fund.
The next day we motored along a wide,
placid section of the canal, passing one
alligator after another on the banks. Apart
from bass-fi shing boats, there was very
little traffi c, which came in handy when
we suddenly needed to sail. Our engine
temp alarm sounded, so Rebecca shut
down the engine and I rolled out the jib.
I found a coolant leak at the top of the
water pump, patched it with gasket-maker
(while playing hot potato with the metal
parts), and let it cure while we coasted
along in the lovely sunshine. That eve-
ning’s fi ve-star accommodations were in
Moore Haven, where the waterway turns
into the Caloosahatchee Canal. We pulled
Liberte up to the seawall, walked 100 yards
to city hall and paid our buck a foot. We
found a pair of tree frogs still hitching a
ride aboard the boat from Indiantowncr
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The hiking trails at Cayo Costa State
Park are a wonderland of cabbage
palm, pine and overhanging oak.COURTESYDAVID
K
ILMER(^4)