Thursday March 10th 2022

Today was a muggy day. The humidity has increased and the wind has decreased. The result was a high temperature around 90 degrees, even with a mostly cloudy sky. Tomorrow is forecast to be similar. On Saturday the rain associated with a cold front that has been hovering over central Florida is expected to extend south into this area.

This was lawn maintenance day at the campground. The service is preformed under contract to the local Goodwill organization. I don’t know what the circumstances of the workers are, but they perform the task with the enthusiasm and speed of a sloth in the hundred yard dash. Each worker has a task and a piece of power equipment. One guy gets the riding mower, another gets the push mower, one gets the weed wacker, one the edger and finally one the leaf blower. There doesn’t seem to be any coordination between the workers from that point on. They scatter through the park working and taking many uncoordinated breaks in out of the way places. The bottom line is they get the work done, the park grass is well manicured and it looks great.

The Ortona Lock was very busy today. I watched about five lock openings most with multiple boats in the lock. Ten boats from a Naples Yacht club passed through going upstream toward Lake Okeechobee for the weekend. The group was divided into two separate lock rises. Six boats seems to be the limit for this lock. I also watched one boat from Canada with a language issue understanding directions. The lock master wanted them on the opposite side of the lock than they were setup to use. The hand signals were wild.

Getting the boats into the lock, changing the water level and getting the boats out of the lock takes about half an hour. It seems to be a little quicker lowering the water level. They can open the downriver gate wider without worrying about the turbulent created. Watching all the traffic pass through the lock combined with walking to and from my campsite took a large portion of my day. It was an interesting day.