Departed the marina at Ft. Lauderdale Friday morning about 11am. After an uneventful trip down the river thru Port Everglades Channel to the Atlantic things got fun. There’s a term called “passing the bar” which is tough when the tides are going one way, the ebb tide another and the wind decides to add it’s two cents. The result was 10-12 ft waves. Now we have a big boat with stabilizers but it still was a thrill ride. I ended up sitting on the couch in the salon holding Isabella on my lap (who by the way was terrified) so she wouldn’t get thrown around. It didn’t last very long, only about 15-20 minutes but it was enough to persuade Isabella to spend the rest of the day on the floor at the foot of our bed. How do animals seem to know exactly where the center of the boat is for maximum stabilization?
Although Captain Jim and Gary fared well I was a little green around the edges for the rest of the day. Thank goodness we had decided to make it a short day and dropped anchor at Lakewood around 5 or 6pm.
Saturday started off early with a run just off the coast. We wanted to get as far as Port Canaveral that day which meant running about 6 miles off the coast at 10-12 knots. I got some time at the helm trying to avoid fishing boats which was fun and surprisingly easy. Gary has adapted as if he has been doing this his entire life. The seas were calm and the sun even came out after a rainy couple of days.
We were close enough to Port Canaveral to see the Space-X missile launch. More impressive than the launch was the return of the first stage of the rocket with accompanying sonic boom. It touched down like a feather. I think they’ve finally got the hang of it.
We anchored Saturday night on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) for an early start Sunday.
________________________
It’s now Sunday about noon and we’re motoring up the ICW to get to Daytona for dinner with friends.
After two and a half days underway on the boat we’re decided that we love the boat, we love being on the boat and why in heck did we wait so long to do this?