On Saturday, 12/20/14, we hauled the anchor in Lake Worth at 0745 and motored (still without our sails) south on the ocean to Ft. Lauderdale.  As is typical in Southeast Florida on a weekend, the ocean was littered with boats, mostly fishing.  The combination of them stirring up the water and swells hitting us on the beam made for an uncomfortable ride. From the shore, there were no white caps and the seas were less than two feet so it probably looked like a nice day on the ocean. However, swells hitting us every ten seconds made the boat rock side to side.  We were very happy to get into a slip on the New River at 1530, making the cruise 7 hrs 45 minutes.

Poor Sailor threw up for the first time on the boat.  This was after sailing to the Bahamas last year, sailing around the islands for four months and sailing back to Florida and north to Stuart never getting seasick.  In the photo below, I believe Sailor is rethinking this boat dog thing.  Once he realizes that he will be in the Bahamas soon enjoying the beaches every day, he’ll come around.  We call this look “the stink eye.”

Mark made good use of the time and spent most of Sunday cleaning the very dirty deck. This will be the last time we have unlimited water until we return to the US at the end of May.  When we clean the boat in the Bahamas, we use salt water and soap to wash it and rinse it with fresh water. We have hoses that dispense salt and fresh water on each sugar scoop and on the foredeck we have a deckwash system with fresh and salt water.

Below we are at slip 35 on the New River, just before the 3rd Ave. Bridge which can be seen in the second picture.  There are numerous bridges over the New River since it goes right through the city. There is a park next to us and of course we are surrounded by condos and right on the Riverwalk.  Boats are constantly going up and down the river, from megayachts being towed to the Lauderdale Marine Center for repairs farther up the river to kayaks, powerboats, commerical tour boats, and sailboats.

This morning, Monday, 12/21/14, the riggers arrived on time at 1000 with our sails.  Two hours later they finished and we left the river to head out on the ocean and SAIL to Miami.  Or so we thought.  We are headed right into a 17-20 kt wind, thus no sense in raising the sails.  Sometimes we rock side to side and sometimes front to back. Not fun, but we’ve been in much worse.  The sun is shining and it’s 80 degrees. Today is a short trip, about 5 hours.  We are headed for an anchorage in Sunset Lake near South Beach for a few days at least. We’ve never anchored in this area so are looking forward to exloring it. The weather is changing tomorrow and we won’t have a window to leave for Bimini until after Christmas. Today probably would have been a good day to go, and we had planned on it until the riggers forgot to bring the sails and delayed us.  However, as always on a boat, plans are written in sand.