We departed from Melborne at 0930 and planned to stop at Cocoa for lunch... awesome pizza place there... Ryan's Village Pizza... just can't pass by without stopping for a pizza or two... :)

We arrived at Cocoa and docked at the city docks at 1215... had lunch at Ryan's Village Pizza... just a short walk from the docks... We were joined at lunch by Roger and Robin and their guest cruisers Bill and Kathy from SeaRobin and also Jay and Pam from Floating Dock... both had gone to the Cocoa Village Marina... The pizza was great as always and we ate way too much... :)

We did not finish with lunch until 1430 and our planned destination for the day was New Smyrna Beach... which was still approximately 60nm north of us... we decided it was too far to continue on today and opted to spend the night in Cocoa and get an early start to New Smyrna Beach in the morning... and an afternoon nap sounded really good... LOL

Stats for today:

We traveled 2 hours and 45 minutes and covered 18 nautical miles (21 miles) averaging 6.5 knots (7.5 mph).

We departed from Hutchinson Island Marriott Marina in Stuart Florida at 1000 hours... destination Melborne, Florida... arriving to Melborne at 1840 hours and ww anchored for the evening at N28°04.659', W080°35.559'.

We traveled for 8 hours and 40 minutes covering 58 nautical miles (67 miles) average speed 6.7 knots (7.7 mph).

We departed from Moorehaven at 0650 and headed towards the Moorehaven Lock... we had the green light to enter the lock as we arrived and by 0655 we were secure in the lock and waiting to lock through. We had less than a foot rise and were back under way at 0705.

The lake was lower than normal and we expected to see much lower water depths than we actually saw... most of the waterway from Moorehaven Lock to the Port Mayaca Lock we saw depths of 7' to 8'... there were a few spots exiting from Clewiston and at the arrival point to Port Mayaca Lock that we saw 5.6' to 6' depths but overall the depth during the crossing was sufficient.

We arrived at the Port Mayaca Lock at 1200 and again had the green light to enter as we arrivedso we entered without any delay… by 1210 we had been lowered about 6” and were underway again.

The next lock was the St. Lucie Lock and was about 17nm ahead and on a restricted opening schedule… opening only at 1300, 1500, 1700, and 1900 hours… we wanted to make the 1500 opening if at all possible… however to do this we needed to push pretty hard… the biggest problem was the water depth… 7’ to 8’ and at this depth we had a hard time maintaining speed we needed to make the 1500 opening… according to our chartplotter we would arrive at the lock at about 1510 to 1515… with luck we would make up some of the time if the water got deeper and we could get some more speed… Luckily, we did make up a little time with a few deep stretches and the biggest saving grace was that there were boats ahead of us entering the lock and allowed us the extra few minutes we needed… entered the lock at 1505 and we were lowered 10-1/2’… at 1521 we departed the lock and were underway towards Stuart.

We arrived to an area called the Manatee Pocket and anchored at 1728… N27°09.244’, W080°11.785’… we were joined several other MTOA boats that were already anchored here… “Sea Robbin, Blue Crab, MI-TI-MO, Sea Angel, and Encore”… we all got together for a little cocktail party aboard “Sea Robbin”… the next day we would depart and proceed to the location of the MTOA Southern Rendezvous… the Hutchinson Island Marriott Marina located on the ICW just north of the Stuart Inlet… N27°12.488’, W080°11.029’.

We would be at the Marriott Marina for approximately a week for the rendezvous before continuing on our trek north for the summer.