Wednesday march 5 to Moore Haven

We got an early start with the anchor up at 730 under sunny skies with a light easterly headwind. While sandy was  below making coffee I got so absorbed with taking apart the grill that I let the boat run right into the bushes on the side of the river and we were hard aground. If that were not enough I put her into reverse and promptly fouled the dinghy painter in the propeller. Up until that moment sandy thought my seamanship skill was above reproach. I dove down with a knife and cleared the propeller.  As I pushed on the bow Sandy put her into reverse and backed her off the bank into the river. If she had left me behind it would have been well deserved. We reached a bridge shortly thereafter and we're delayed over an hour by maintenance work they were doing. As we moved farther east on the river the occasional houses gave way to cattle ranches and scrubby wilderness. We passed through another lock at Ortona . At 1 o'clock we finally had a light favorable wind and had the main and jib up. We even had the engine off for a total of 3 minutes. Along the way we saw two alligators. One was only about 4 or 5 feet long but the other was quite a bit larger. We reached Moore Haven on the shore of Lake Okeechobee at 4 o'clock and tied up at the city dock. We had time to head to a laundromat, and I went shopping for reading glasses and sunglasses. So far on this trip I have lost two pairs of reading glasses and broken two pairs of sunglasses. Fortunately none of them were expensive. So I bought a lifetime supply of both reading and sunglasses at Dollar General. I can't be trusted with expensive glasses. After returning to the boat we got on the tandem bike and headed to the local church for their 630 ash Wednesday mass. The congregation was about evenly divided between Mexicans and non Mexicans. The priest was Cuban and the service was bilingual. he was long winded in both languages. By the time mass was over it was pitch dark and although we had lights for the bike we had to ride along US 27 on a narrow shoulder for about a half mile. We must have said the right prayers at church because we did not become roadkill. We had dinner at the best restaurant in town- subway. Moore Haven is a small and evidently dying town it reminded us of some of the towns we saw on our bike trip across the country last summer. 30 statute miles today.