Today’s challenge was to traverse our first lock. The Okeechobee waterway has five locks in all. These raise and lower our boat as we move across the state to the east coast.  The first lock is W.P. Franklin, and is only 12 miles or so from Ft. Myers, so the first task was to put Ft Myers to our rudder and head east into the heart of Florida.

This lock only raises us by about 1.5 feet, but it is still a giant concrete structure that is pretty intimidating for first timers. This is what it looks like from a distance:

The idea here is to drive the boat into the lock chamber and hold the boat against the wall while the lockmaster closes the doors behind you.

There are ropes hanging from the walls of this lock, so we hold on tight while the lockmaster opens the opposite doors so a rush of water raises the water level (and us) to the new, higher level of the waterway.

Finally when the front doors are fully open, we follow the other boats out of the lock.

Our destination for the day is the W.P. Franklin Campground, which happens to be right next to the lock. There are docks available for a few boats, and I had reserved one of them weeks ago. So it was a simple matter of rounding the corner and docking.

I love boat camping!

We planned to stay at the campground after exiting the lock because the next lock in the system has been closed for maintenance for the past two weeks and is scheduled to open back up tomorrow.