La Belle

1199 nm   N26 46.128  W081 26.283

About an hour after dawn, we got underway.  Although it would be another easy day of only 21 nm, we wanted to get to the free dock at La Belle as early as possible in order to get a slip.

Ready to Go

One of the things I'd noticed as we traveled the OCWW is the chart data is way less reliable than elsewhere on the ICW.  It frequently showed us traveling over land even though we were in the center of the canal!

We're On Land!

Soon we were entering the Ortona Lock, our fourth of five locks on the OCWW.  We were starting to feel pretty confident.  This lock would drop us 8 feet.  But for the first time the lockmaster was requiring everyone entering the lock chamber to be wearing their lifejackets!  Claimed it was a new rule, so we complied.  He also wanted everyone to stop their engines, but I had always been told to keep it running, and I found it useful to buck the current as the lock filled or drained instead of requiring the line-tenders to do it by brute force.

Entering Ortona Lock

We arrived at La Belle around 1:00 pm and found three slips open.  One had a finger dock, and the other two did not.  There were several sailors on shore to help with our docklines.  They warned us that the finger dock slip was shallow.  We tried to go in bow first, but ran softly aground with the finger dock just barely reachable.  So we backed out and took one of the slips without a finger dock.  This required bringing our anchor platform within inches of the main dock, and then securing the boat tightly with spring lines to hold it there.  Fortunately, there are no tides here, so you can get away with tying up tightly.  Stepping over the bow pulput onto the dock required a little acrobatics, but wasn't too bad, as the dock was at almost the same height as our anchor platform.

At the Dock

Welcome to La Belle

As we talked with our dockmates, we learned that we had stumbled into the La Belle BBQ Festival, where more than 20 different cooks were competing for the best BBQ ribs!  And it was starting in the nearby park in 30 min!

The way it worked was that you bought a bunch of tickets.  Then you wandered the park, selecting ribs to try.  One ticket, one rib.  After sampling as much as you wanted, you voted on your favorite. 

Joanie Entering the Park

The park was filled with giant stately Live Oaks, and there was a stage with live music. It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

After the three of us stuffed ourselves silly with ribs, and voted, we decided we had to take a little walk through town to walk some of it off!  Along the way, we passed the illustrated building of the Harold P. Curtis Honey Company.

We had run low on rum on the boat (Horrors!), so we stopped off to replenish our supply.  Of course, once back at the boat, we had to finish off the old bottle to make space for the new one.  There's only so much space on a sailboat you know!

Life is good.