Tuesday, December 9, 2008

West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale......Miami!

























Today we arrive in Miami, our final destination until after Christmas. Over 1800 miles we have come, what a trip.


We left West Palm early, before dawn, for an outside leg. It was a slightly foggy morning which lent mystery to the already mysterious open ocean before us. The water was an indescribable blue, the winds fair. We had such sail (we actually got to use them!) past all the beaches and high rise buildings. We reached Fort Lauderdale around 2:30, having avoided 20 bridges and caught 5 fish. We felt pretty good about ourselves! We anchored in Lake Sylvia in down town Lauderdale and the kids immediately started bottom fishing. By evening they had caught 5 more fish and Alistair had squid on his cheek, in his hair and all over his pants! He was in charge of re-baiting the hooks! We grilled up our catch of atlantic mackerel and tucked in!
In between a huge cruise ship and a tugboat pushing a container ship! We felt like a minnow!







Writer's workshop celebration.






In the morning we went into Las Olas marina, which is the municipal marina of Fort Lauderdale, for the day for only 15 bucks! There we showered, did 3 loads of laundry, Charles cleaned the boat, we had school, met a canvas guy about sunshade. After a walk and some beach combing we moved the boat back to Lake Sylvia.
The next morning we left early and headed once again south for our last leg to Miami. We arrived to find the anchorage that we had to ourselves eight years ago crowded with around 15 boats! We set our anchor and got ready to go ashore to meet Papa Charlie.
We spent the afternoon and early evening at P.C.' s house, the kids went swimming in the pool and tried out their snorkels, and we had rice and beans for supper! We will be here in Miami for the next couple of weeks, through the holidays. Of course there will be more pics and stories to tell.

2 comments:

jglitter said...

Hooray! Enjoy the family time!

Anonymous said...

Hello sailors! We do hope you are basking in the balmy weather down there. You should enjoy it all the more when you hear that you've missed the hugest, nastiest ice storm since '98 (or whenever that bad one was). Most of New England lost power on Dec. 11/12. Our house was dark for just about 30 hours, but we count ourselves on the lucky side! Much of New Hampshire is still without power and are being told not to expect anything until Monday at the earliest!! Brunswick is still coated in ice, but at least we have electricity.
We miss you.