Weather: Sunny, cool, Northwest breeze. Very pleasant. :)
Update: We had a lovely sail today down the south Florida Coast. Condos as far as the eye can see and fishing boats everywhere. The water is deep right up to the beach so you can actually sail so close that you can see the people swimming on the beach. Much more fun than the South Carolina coast. It was blowing about 15 knots out of the West. Perfect for a beam reach with no fetch or wind chop that close to shore.
Now I have to say, Ft. Lauderdale is wild! It is "The Venice of America." Narrow, deep rivers and canals extending throughout the entire city. We managed to navigate our way a few miles down the New River to our destination, The River Bend Marina. There are so many canals and sharp snake turns in the river and no channel markers past the first mile, it is easy to make a wrong turn. Heaven forbid if you do, there is definately not enough space to turn around. Then you have the worry about meeting the Jungle Queen, a huge river cruise passenger ferry that takes up the entire channel and doesn't slow down. Oh, and there are 5 lift bridges to go under as well and the charted depth is only 6 ft. in places. (we never saw less than 10, phew!) This all makes for a very exciting afternoon.
The best was the bridge tenders. Although they were very quick to open for you, they all use different, far from standard operating procedure for radio communication. My personal favorite...
"SE 3rd St. Bridge, SE 3rd St. Bridge, this is the Schooner When And If approaching. requesting a lift. over"
"keep a' comin"
uhhh... and just as I was going to call back, because I thought it couldn't have possibly been the bridge responding, we look up and see the lift start to open. Amazing ... radio skills that is.
Viewing the houses that are on this river is quite an experience. Multimillion dollar homes with pool, patio, jungle gym, lawn decorations, fountains, huge trees, private canals, docks, and your very own yacht parked outside.
So, we are all set to haul at 8:00am tomorrow morning. I'll post pictures and keep you updated as to how it goes.
Cheers!
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