Back in the US(S)A…boys, you don’t know how lucky you are boys…
We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale Friday afternoon after a smooth and warm cruise from Bimini. On the way, we actually saw a “baby” funnel cloud about 2 miles off in the distance! Otherwise, the trip was uneventful, until we got closer to the Ft. Lauderdale inlet. It was a typical Friday afternoon in Lauderdale, with fishing boats, cargo ships and the usual radio banter. I guess you know you’re back in the US when both radio and boat traffic is “back to normal”!
We have been on our mooring at Las Olas City Marina for a few days now. We have already put our dinghy to get brand new tubes! Very exciting, since it will be “like new”, even after falling in the water upside down. We expect to get it back on Friday.
We also got our bimini repaired. When we were in Man-o-War, we had a brief but fierce squall with wind speed over 35 knots! We had to re-anchor our boat, and in the storm, our bimini got shredded. We tried to get it fixed in the Abaco, but given our schedule (and the much higher price) we decided to bring it here for the repair. We already have it back and mounted, so it is very nice to have some shade on the top deck!
We have been enjoying the Ft. Lauderdale scene; people watching on the beautiful beach (lots of college kids), eating in restaurants, doing laundry, and generally hanging out. Weather has been absolutely wonderful, although it is VERY hot here! Most days it is well in the upper 80’s, but we generally get a nice breeze in the mooring field.
We saw our good friends Karen and Dave for dinner on Monday night. We had a great time, and even though we hadn’t seen each other for five years – we saw them the last time we were in Ft. Lauderdale when we bought Auriga in 2006- it seemed like it was just yesterday! We are also seeing Rolf tonight for dinner, to say thanks again for helping us out with our dinghy purchase back in March.
Tomorrow, Friday, we have a busy day. We will get our renewed dinghy back, and then we will get stocked up at the grocery for our journey back. On Saturday, we will head out to Stuart, then keep moving north home.
Yesterday, we left our mooring briefly to fuel up with diesel for the return journey. They have a fuel barge here in Lauderdale, just like the one in New Bedford where we fueled up at the beginning of our journey. Whereas in New Bedford, the barge ties up to us and we “float” around the harbor as we refuel, here in Lauderdale, since the river is a bit less deep than New Bedford (10 ft vs about 30!), the fuel barge has “spud poles” which it lowers into the mud at the bottom of the river to hold it in place. Chris did an amazing docking onto the barge, and we took on about 500 gallons of diesel. Once we were done, we came back and picked up our mooring again.
I won’t get too philosophical about our adventure, since it is really not quite the end yet. Suffice to say, we are feeling a bit sad about not being in the beautiful Bahamas, but also pleased to be closer to home. We have been listening to the news every day, and while we didn’t get much news when we were in the Bahamas, nothing much seems too different. The government is still almost running out of money, we are still in a mess in the Middle East, and the economy is still not great. The biggest news is that Oprah is going to retire, but we don’t feel very strongly about that!!
Hey guys glad you all made it back okay. We are sitting in front of Staniel by the Grotto waiting and waiting on weather to move. Trying to get back to the states but mother nature isnt playing along. Think we will head to Highborne than over to Bimini before heading to West Palm. Think our plan is to try for a marina in Titusville and stay with my sis a while in Auburndale till we can figure out what we will do. Our phone will be turned back on next week and once we get a chance we will give you a call. Keep us posted on your where abouts. Miss you two and hope you see you both again.
ReplyDelete