Fort Lauderdale – 8 nautical miles sailed, 9 kilometres walked, 7 kilometres by bus
I awoke to sporadic rain showers and the wind not blowing the boat apart for a change, as the breeze had shifted and slackened. Tony was up shortly after me so we made coffees and had an early morning chat in the cockpit. It was so nice having my buddy here for a visit.
Despite my better judgement, I let Ana buy a small bunch of mini-bananas yesterday and bring them on board. Normally, bananas are unconditionally banned on SeaLight as they are proven to cause horrendous bad luck on boats. But she convinced me that the electrical problem with the fridges yesterday somehow short circuited the banana curse and bought us at least a day’s reprieve. She had already eaten half of them, but a cold shudder racked my body when I spotted the remaining ones on the counter in the morning. In a panic, I started mixing batter for banana pancakes and, of course, American pork in a tube, which has never been known to inflict ill fortunes.
After our leisurely breakfast we dinghy’d into shore and walked up Las Olas Boulevard to the Riverwalk – a mile or so of pathways along the canal, which was nice enough, but not overly spectacular. While there, we looked across the canal to Smokers Family Park (insert underage nicotine joke here) and spotted one of our mooring neighbours docked and loading up on water and free power. Their 45’ catamaran would have a much shallower draft than us, but we hoped we’d be able to squeeze in and legit fill our tanks instead of another daring night raid. We returned to the boat, fired her up, tied the dinghy to the mooring ball to stake our claim, then motored down the ICW and up the New River. Our solar system had been struggling to recharge the batteries with the recent cloudy days so it was nice getting a little juice boost from the engine alternator.
We eased up to the park wall and the crew secured SeaLight effortlessly and flew into action plugging in the power cord for more charging, filling the boat water tanks and portable jugs, and even giving the boat a quick scrub and fresh water rinse. I watched the depth gauge nervously as the available water beneath our keel went from 0.5 feet to 0.3 and to 0.2 with the ebbing current of the falling tide. We moved as quickly as we could, but by the time we had the hose and power cord put away and the lines untied we were grounded and the boat wasn’t floating away. So I gave the engine throttle a hard pump in reverse and she slid right off. With a sigh of relief we motored back to the mooring, full of water and boiling over with joy. I was so happy I even helped a sailboat of Quebecers pick up a mooring ball – the one which had lost its pendant and sent the previous tenant into the wall. I wished them better luck, then returned to SeaLight and hung some fenders just in case.
By this time it was 4pm and we hadn’t found time for lunch, so Ana put out some cracker and hummus snacks as we enjoyed cockpit cocktails and she forbade either of Tony or myself from helping with dinner, as she could see we were enjoying ourselves immensely sharing tales of adventure and stupidity. 45 minutes later she delivered a platter of toasted garlic bread and a spectacular paella, filled with fresh sausage, pan fried shrimp, and bits and pieces of various delicious sea creatures. It was heavenly. And there were leftovers for a future lunch.
She did let us help with dishes and while I was walking through the cabin with a towel drying the paella scoop, I rammed my toe into an wooden edge.
“Kayyy-rhist!!” I said as I jumped up and down on the other foot.
“What’d you do?” she asked, shocked.
“Stubbed my toe,” I squeaked, then looked down at the floor and noticed something lying there. “Holy shit, my nail’s off!”
“What??” she said.
I bent down for a closer look. “Oh, it’s just a piece of rice. I’m good.” She sent us back out to the cockpit.
We had opened all the cockpit panels so with the breeze rushing through Ana suggested we have our post dinner cigars there instead of on deck. We fired up the Romeo and Julieta look-alikes we bought yesterday and smoked them down to the nub as we all talked and laughed and enjoyed the pleasures of floating on the water on a warm Florida December night.
No comments:
Post a Comment