Position: N25 44.727 W080 10.116
We’d been wondering for a while if we and Rachel all still knew how to sail. Turns out we do, even though our skills have atrophied somewhat. How long has it been since we’ve sailed her? Too dang long, that’s for sure.
We leave Lake Santa Barbara Thursday morning and make our way slowly through the fog down to Ft. Lauderdale. The vibration problem is all gone, thank goodness, with Mark’s removal of the plastic bag from the propeller. We rush to make the opening for the last bridge before the inlet, hard on the heels of another sailboat. We call the bridge and no response. There’s a ton of VHF traffic on the bridge channel – the tow boats are using it, someone else is chatting on it, and there are several bridges in range, with everyone requesting opening times, etc. We try a couple more times, but the bridge tender doesn’t answer.
The other boat goes through. We have about 100 yards to go and the bridge starts closing!! AARGH! Now we have to wait another half hour for it to open again. We try to figure out what went wrong and finally get it. We used the wrong name. It was the correct name when our 2007 guide was published, but it’s not the correct name any more. Some bridge tenders are really nice, and others are on power trips. This one decided that, since we didn’t use the new “correct” name, he’d ignore us. What a rotten thing to do! Especially since we really wanted to make that opening so we’d have more time to sail!
We finally get close enough to read the new name on a sign, hail him on the radio and he puts us “on his list”. We circle slowly, waiting for the 10:30 opening. The bells start clanging, we line up, ready for the bridge to open, and … nothing happens! After about 5 more minutes he hails us on the radio – his barricades aren’t working and he has to call a mechanic to come fix them. AARGH!
Another 45 minutes and the bridge is fixed. We finally get through (bridge tender a bit apologetic) although it’s over an hour after we arrived, seriously cutting into our sailing time. AARGH!
Anyway, we have a nice sail down the coast of Florida to Miami. Our current anchorage is right across from downtown Miami. And we’re not only close to Miami, we are surrounded by a park with trails and trees, and the local rowing teams are out practicing in the evenings, too.
We sit in the cockpit in the evenings, have dinner, enjoy all the lights from the skyscrapers. In this new life of ours we savour these precious times and wonder how much it would cost in ‘the real world’ to buy such a great dinner with this awesome view.
