5/8/15: River Forest Yacht Marina, LaBelle, Fl. – Roland Martin Marina, Clewiston, Fl. 1 lock & 23.20 NM.

Most people don’t call this a ‘destination’ stop but we sure do. Floating docks well protected behind the lock walls and southern charm. The store has unique gifts and the outdoor restaurant screams ‘southern Florida.’

The channel is well protected along the rim and is teaming with alligators, birds, and turtles.

You never know what you will see on the water!

We saw alligators.

5/7/15: Ft. Myers – River Forest Yacht Marina, LaBelle, Fl. – 2 Locks & 35.30 NM

We arrived at Ft. Myers in December with plans to stay a month, go to the Keys, then the Bahamas. Well that never happened. We settled into Ft. Myers, got our yearly Doctor visits out of the way, and just relaxed. It was a much needed rest after the loop.

Today we left Ft. Myers. We are rested and ready to get back onto the water. We decided to make the first two days short days since we hadn’t been away from the dock in 5 months. This turned out to be a great plan.

Beautiful day on the water.

The first day we went through 2 locks ( a dolphin played inside one of the locks) and boy did they seem easy after the ones on the Erie Canal and Canada.  We docked at the River Forest Yacht Center which is mainly known for its inside yacht storage. Hundreds of boats each year make their way to this location, get hauled out of the water, and stored in a large building. It was impressive the size of the boats stored here.

Entrance to River Forest Yacht Center