Happy New Year!

Fort Lauderdale – 8 kilometres walked, 10 metres swum, 52 kilometres driven

Nothing starts a day better than a trip to Sailorman. Magnus and I picked up Corey and we drove to the huge consignment store in search of boat goodies. Corey was looking to build a cockpit arch for a solar array and I was picked up a few small items – wooden dowels, dive knife, cupboard latch, but didn’t find a good deal on a fishing gaff so would have to keep looking. As we were browsing, one of staff members approached us with a pitcher and cups.

 “You guys like some fresh home-made eggnog? It’s loaded with rum.”

 “Yes please!” Cory and I said in unison. Magnus grimaced – not a huge egg nog fan. It was rummy, foamy, and delicious.

We moved onto the Boat Owner’s Warehouse and I picked up a spare spark plug for my generator and the boys took advantage of the free coffee station. Next was a stop to fill up our spare diesel and gas cans, then a fishing store where the super cool owner took us under his wing and crafted a cedar plug fishing lure for each of us, found us some simple hooks for reef fishing, and sold me an $8 hook I could use to make my own low cost gaff instead of spending fifty bucks on a new one. He also gave us two important tips on cruising the Bahamas:

1.    1. Eyes are everywhere. Stay on watch at night. Lock anything you don’t want to lose. People will come on your boat to steal things when you are not there. Use a buddy boat system.

2.     2. If you catch more fish than you can eat you can trade with locals for other food.

We then dropped by the marina office to pick up a parking pass, which gives us a permit to park on the street right beside the anchorage park instead of in the residential neighbourhood. Once back at the anchorage we swapped spots with the girls, including Marie and Alice, and they drove to Delray Beach for shopping and beach gawking while we did a few boat jobs – transferred the diesel from the cans into the boat, installed a cabinet latch for the electrical panel, and made ourselves a super deadly fish gaff with a nice maple dowel Corey gave to us. Once the work was done we walked with Corey and his friend Justin to the beach and got a bit of sun, a bit of rain, listened to some tunes, and I went for a quick swim in the surprisingly flat waters.

Back at the boat I whipped up a New Year’s Eve dinner for us of crab cakes, shrimp pasta, coleslaw, and fresh bread. We had an excellent slow meal in the cockpit, a champagne toast to 2025, then left around 9:30 to see what we could find happening in Fort Lauderdale. As expected, the city was exploding with activity. Restaurants with fancied up dudes and ladies, bars with heavy beats pumping out into the street, delicious smells, flashing lights. We saw women wearing outrageous outfits – tight tops with bursting cleavage, skin-tight dresses, skirts, and leather pants, jumpsuits, hot pants. One girl was wearing a golden bikini…and nothing else. The outfits got trashier the closer we got to Esplanade Park, for the midnight anchor drop, DJs, and live band. It was pure madness. My body was being vibrated with deep bass from powerful speakers in all directions, from the two stages, from the bars, from the clubs, resulting in a jumble of nonsensical sound. The crowd got rougher, with gangsta types, drunk people, hooligans, messy party girls, thousands of hooters and hollerers. Ana checked her phone around 10:30 as we were expecting a message from Cory, Marie and their gang, but nothing yet. It was still a ways from midnight, and we were not feeling entirely comfortable in that scene, and I hate to admit it, but both Ana and I we were thinking of the US massacres in recent years that happened in crowded places, with a sniper on the roof spraying AR-15 bullets through random, innocent people. This felt like just the sort of place where something like this could happen. 

We left, and walked back towards Las Olas, taking our time, looking for just the right place. Ana and Anna were holding hands as they walked, having fun. A well-liquified couple walked towards us. The woman pointed to Ana and said, “Look! I want to hold hands with a girl just like that!” I agreed. My wife was looking especially beautiful this evening.

Then, Stella found it. A small pizza joint with plastic chairs and tables on a patio, with two checkered-shirt Mexican gents playing guitar and keyboard. We sat down and ordered drinks. The music was great. We watched the evening partiers walking back and forth, laughing, being silly. Ana ordered a margherita pizza for us to share. It was getting close to midnight when the staff began handing out party hats and noisemakers to the customers. There was no countdown. There was no heady anticipation. The owner simply walked onto the patio and said, “Happy New Year!” It was fantastic! We hugged and kissed and Ana told the kids how happy we were that we were all here together.

We left wearing our fancy hats and Stella and Anna blew their party horns all the way back to the boat, increasingly irritating Magnus who was New Year’d out and ready for bed. During the dinghy ride back, Stella blew an especially loud one and Magnus bent her party horn in half.

“You Scrooge!” said Anna. Then started chanting, “Scrooge McDuck! Scrooge McDuck! Scrooge McDuck.” We all joined in. Magnus laughed.

 And that’s how we spent the last day of a very, very fine 2024.

Merry Christmas from Fort Lauderdale!

Fort Lauderdale – 3 kilometres walked

Today was financial reconciliation day. Each year around this time I do a deep analysis of our year’s spending, investment performance, and progress on goals, then I put together a presentation for the family. I had considered not doing it this year as part of my plan to break away from our regular life and routines as much possible, but Ana has asked if I was going to do it, and was hoping I would. I started work on it around 7, and took a few short breaks to defrost one of the refrigerators as glacial cooling had turned the chicken, beef, and hot dogs into a single, multi-coloured, icy mass making it impossible to retrieve any food.

 

I finished around 6pm, happy with the final results, then made myself a Christmas Eve dinner of yellow-fin tuna steak, kale salad, and spicy rice and enjoyed it slowly as my trip hop playlist flowed and oozed from the boat speakers. I could feel my back starting to whine after being slumped over the laptop all day, so I lowered the dinghy, paddled to the dock, then started walking towards the beach which, I assumed, would be quiet as surely nothing would be open on Christmas Eve.

I was wrong about that.

 

In the park by the beach was a stage with three zoot suit crooners backed by a brass band playing Mack the Knife to five hundred people. It was crazy! There were people everywhere, many wearing Santa hats, carrying cans of beer or cocktails, watching the show. Ana called as I was watching the band as she was so worried I was moping around the boat all lonely with Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” on infinite repeat. Fortunately, Fort Lauderdale is a party every day. 

I watched the band, I went for a walk along the beach, I walked past all the busy bars, and by 9pm I was back at the boat shortly before Christmas rain began to fall.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Chores, Iguanas, and New Neighbours

Fort Lauderdale – 8 kilometres walked, 8 kilometres by bus

I decided today that I was going to celebrate Christmas Day by doing nothing productive, which meant I had to get my arse moving to finish up some tasks in the next two days. Being without a car is great, as it forces you to exercise a lot more and be more strategic with your movements, but it does mean that things take a lot longer. For example, it took me a full six hours today to get supplies at Walmart and do laundry, which required a lot of walking, waiting for bus transfers, and lugging gear. I overdid my shopping, resulting in a packed and heavy roller carrier, a full backpack, plus a big bag of laundry. I forget there are usually two of us for carrying things….

 

As I waited In the laundromat, a local fellow came over and sat across from me with some ragged scratch tickets. He told me he had found them in the street and was carefully scratching off the validation number with a tarnished nickel as he explained that it wasn’t necessary to play the game on the card.

 

“One of those might be a big winner,” I said to him.

 

“If I win, I’m going to get a hotel room, have a long hot shower, and go for a meal at a restaurant. That’s what I’ll do,” he said as his eyes shifted between me and the card on the table. “That would make for a real merry Christmas.”

 

“Well I sure hope you win,” I said as I looked at his torn shirt, dirty pants, scraggly hair, and kind eyes.

 

“It would be a true blessing. Have a merry Christmas my friend, God’s blessings,” he said then pulled himself up and disappeared out the door before our conversation could go any further. I was happy I’d had the chance to meet this man, albeit briefly. I hope he won. I was rolling our encounter around my head as I finished folding clothes then began my return walk to the anchorage. After a block, a rustling sound snapped me out of my trance and I looked over to see a huge green and beady-eyed iguana rapidly and effortlessly scaling a tree. I stood watching him for a while, wondering what it would feel like if he used those needle-sharp claws to climb up my back.

 

A new boat had arrived at the anchorage, a Catalina 27, and I stopped by in the dinghy to say hello. They were a couple from St. Thomas, Ontario and were cruising with their young daughter. I had a feeling we’d be getting to know each other.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon writing our annual Christmas letter, then Stillman, Ester and the girls arrived around 6pm with four boxes of pizza. The evening was deliciously warm, like the pizza, and we enjoyed a meal together and a good few drinks as we lounged in the cockpit. I got the girls busy doing some colouring down in the cabin, which they seemed to enjoy, and it gave us a chance to talk. It’s been nice spending time with them, especially getting to know Ester better. We talked a lot about her home country of Switzerland and I learned a few new things.

I dinghy’d the gang back to the dock, we wished each other a Merry Christmas, then I stopped by the new boat and properly met Corey, Marie and their daughter. I liked Corey right away when he handed me a cold Yuengling seconds after hooking up with their boat. We chatted for half an hour, traded a few stories, then I headed back to the boat. There will be more to come.

A Paddle Loss, A Beautiful Beach, A Suspect Meal

Fort Lauderdale – 5 kilometres walked, 13 metres swam, 2 miles paddled

I began my first day of bachelorhood with a paddleboard ride. I unlashed my board from the lifelines on the boat, dropped it in the water, then turned to grab the paddle we normally keep on deck. Gone. I know it did not fall in the water as we keep it well secured on deck, and we haven’t been in any rough waters since I last used it. I called Ana and she didn’t remember seeing it when we were cleaning the boat the day before so we’re not sure exactly when it went missing. It either fell overboard somehow or somebody stole it. It was a good reminder to keep anything we don’t want to lose on the boat locked securely.

 

Fortunately, I was able to use one of the spare oars I had picked up for the dinghy back in Annapolis and it worked fine – just had to do more sitting than standing, but nonetheless had a great arm workout paddling against the tidal current on the way back.

 

I spent the rest of the morning on boat jobs – identifying the cause of a pesky electrical issue with our water pump, searching for a spare starter, stowing away all of the winter clothes and gear we no longer need, greasing throttle cables, and climbing in the cockpit locker to figure out the model number of our tachometer for an LED replacement (and in the process finding a spare boat hook I didn’t know about – that makes four so we should be good for a while).

 

The remainder of yesterday’s guac and tortilla chips made a fine lunch and after that I walked to the beach and found it packed with people on a picture perfect Fort Lauderdale afternoon - 27 degrees, slight breeze, just enough waves to play around in, and few clouds. I walked the sometimes mushy, sometimes firm beach until my calves were screaming for mercy, then dropped my stuff and went for a swim in the bathtub water. I floated on my back looking up at the sky. It didn’t matter what day it was. It didn’t matter what time it was. I was doing exactly what I’ve imagined I’d be doing on a fine day in the south. And I was happy for it. And to make it even better I received a message from Kate and Ben saying they had successfully completed the Gulf Stream crossing and they were safely in Bimini, Bahamas!

 

Hiding in a neglected pocket of my backpack was an ancient Cohiba cigar, pronounced dead  back in Canada due to poor moisture levels and frigid temperatures. Well, I’ll be damned if the ideal tropical weather hadn’t reincarnated that crumbling dog turd and produced a fine smoke. And I smoked it slowly and purposefully as I watched the world happening around me. A lovely couple down the beach to my left, very much in love, holding hands from their chairs, leaning over once in a while to kiss, and laughing often. Another couple down to my right, lying on towels, her leg wrapped over his body, staring into each others’ eyes. Bikini’d hotties, some young, some older, mostly women, but some men too, strutting up and down the beach with triangular fabric patches hiding none of their butts, letting the world have a look and radiating that sensitive rearskin with generous sunshine. Moms and dads and kids played further down the beach, digging holes, forming castles of sand, channeling water through moats, throwing flying discs, body surfing on waves, laughing, running. I noticed no motorized vehicles in the water; just people.

 

The body was starting to ache from inactivity so I gathered my things, had a fresh water rinse at a water station, then walked the beach until the string of hotels and restaurants and condos disappeared and palm trees began. I moved onto the street and walked back, finding a Starbucks where I tested the wifi, got myself a decaffeinated Americano for more than the price of a beer, and seated myself overlooking the ocean, then wrote and posted. Hours passed quickly and I did not leave until the shadows were touching the sea.

Back at the anchorage dinghy dock, near the garbage can, I found a pile of nautical cast-offs, including a broken but usable paddleboard paddle and a spare prop that fits our dinghy engine. I scavenged those items and slinked back to the boat like a guilty hyena with a rabbit carcass in its mouth.

 

Hunger was gnawing at my guts so I scoured the fridge in desperate bachelor mode and found two plastic containers of nourishment – one was yesterday’s paella and the other was older and had potatoes, green beans, and a chunk of strangely white pork. I, as a waster of no good things, took the older one and dumped it into the frying pan, but as it heated it gave off a suspect aroma. It wasn’t quite bad but it was not good either. I thought back to the origins of this meal. It wasn’t with Tony. It wasn’t the day before that, or the day before that. I envisioned all our previous dinner and this one did not register. It was when I pulled up the blog to try and Sherlock the date of the food remains that I felt a ghostly apparition of Ana sitting on my shoulder. It leaned into my ear and whispered, “Just throw it out. I know it will hurt to waste food, but just trust me on this one.”

I tossed it in the garbage, heated up the sweet fresh paella and enjoyed a fabulous dinner, then played uke for a couple hours, watched a bit of tv, and surrendered to the Sandman.

I Lost My Girl…Temporarily

Fort Lauderdale – 5 kilometres walked, 10 metres swam

The whole crew was up early and bolted into action with a flurry of grapefruit squirts, toast crumbs, showers, hair drying, wet towels, coffee splashes, flight checking, Uber booking, and last-minute packing. I had Ana and Tony to shore minutes before the Uber arrived. I hugged Tony and knew it wouldn’t be long before I saw him again. And my girl? Well, I hugged her and kissed her then hugged her again, told I that I loved her, and asked her to give the kids a hug and kiss from me and that I’d be here for them when they all returned in a week.

And with that, I was alone.

To get me started, I went for a walk to the beach, despite the unstable weather and cells of rainstorms passing through southern Florida. I wore my tractionless flip flops with Teflon tread, and halfway across the bridge I slipped on a section of shiny steel and nearly flip flopped onto my arse. In the past, this sort of thing could have tweaked my lower back and taken me out of action for months, but my back is in much better shape these days so I escaped unharmed.

My plans for a swim were thwarted by six-foot swells blown up by the strong easterly wind so instead I walked down the beach and was mostly alone. It started to rain heavily but since I was wearing a swimsuit, singlet, and carried only a towel, it didn’t bother me; in fact, I enjoyed it. Rain doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t damage your clothes. Yet whenever rain starts to fall, people race for cover as if there are fireballs plummeting from the sky. Today, I walked slow, slicked my hair back, wiped the water from my eyes, and watched the rain clean the palm leaves, the clay tile roofs, the spilled beer and French fry ketchup from the sidewalks, the iguana poo from their perching spots on the concrete walls, the dusty stucco walls on buildings, condo balconies, and all the grit and shit on the streets, washing it all away in a natural flush-down. It had been a while since we’ve seen a proper rain shower, so perhaps I appreciated it more than normal.

As I was climbing up onto SeaLight my terrible footwear again gave out and I did a slow motion fall onto the swim platform then onto the dinghy, narrowly avoiding a plunge into the ocean. Again, no injuries, but I took the hint from the cosmos and made a note to toss them in the garbage bin next time I went to shore. 

Ana and I do not spent much time apart, so whenever it happens I feel lost. It takes some time to adjust to not having her so I knew today was going to be weird. I believe that absence does make the heart grow fonder so short breaks are not a bad thing (and I was already excited at the thought of seeing her again in a week), but it did mean I would have a lot of hours to fill. Hence, once back inside the boat I wrote a list of daily goals on the back of the Cruising World magazine Tony left behind, December 2024 edition:

1. Write

2. Exercise

3. Practice ukulele

4. Read

5. 1 Boat job

I felt better with a plan, but still loitered around the boat for a while, ill at ease, restless, and purposeless. I cleaned a bit (to bachelor's standard; not Ana's), watched some tv, checked my fuel log, ate a four-day-old Walhburger I found hiding in the fridge behind the salsa, made some other lists, listened to music, and sometimes just stood there looking out the window. By early afternoon the storms had passed so I got the hell out of the boat and returned to the beach for that swim I was looking for, and by then the calmer water and hot sands were full of people. I had my swim then walked the beach for a long time and found a washing station so had a nice fresh water rinse then went across the street to Bo’s Beach Bar in search of wifi. Until now Ana had been sharing her voluptuous data plan with me via a hotspot connection so I was able to post journals and photos with abandon. My own data plan is not voluptuous; it is pale, thin, and weakly.

Well, Bo’s 24-ounce American lager special was pretty good, but the wifi did not work. So I got some writing time in, but was unable to post anything. My search will continue; only 37 bars left on Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard to test out. 

I wandered back to the boat late in the afternoon with an uncomfortable number of hours yet to consume. I read a book as I lounged in the sun-warmed cockpit, made myself a pretty decent guacamole for dinner, practiced ukulele until my fingers were sore, had a ninety minute call with the Newport Tech Committee, then watched some tv until shortly after Mariner’s Midnight.

Made it through my first day without my girl.

Banana Pancakes, Spectacular Paella, and Legal Water

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.

Boat Parade, Wahlburgers, and Buckets of Beer

Fort Lauderdale – 20 kilometres by bus, 10 kilometres walked

At 2am we finished up our last drink in the cockpit after a lenthgy and depthy conversation with Ben and Kate, then watched them row back to their boat as the north wind continued to blow viciously. It was the end of a very long and eventful day.

 

We started the day by walking with Kate and Ben to the weekend market, which was rich in tourist trinkets and knick-knacks but rather poor on fruit and veg. Because they had loved the cockpit party so much last night, they decided to stay a couple of days longer in the hopes for more boozing and late night conversation. We would oblige.

At the first opportunity we caught a bus and rode into the depths of industrial Fort Lauderdale. There, we found Boaters Paradise. Sailorman is a massive used boating equipment store and was packed to the rafters with goodies: enormous fenders for cruise ships, rusted mounds of thick anchor chain, diving gear, alternators, wire, clothing, fittings of all shapes and sizes. We picked up a spare boat hook, a rachet strap, and were rewarded with a free tie-dyed t-shirt which I will wear with pride. 

Next, we explored the largest West Marine store I’ve ever seen – surely their flagship. We picked up a spare diesel can and were tempted by some fancy binoculars, but resisted. If I had a few thousand dollars to throw around I could have blown it in minutes.

All that shopping really stirs a hunger so we stopped at Lester’s Diner for second breakfast and feasted with the locals. Next up was McDonald Plumbing, a boater-oriented hardware store that was packed floor to ceiling with everything. If you can’t find what you’re looking for in that store, it probably doesn’t exist. But the name made me think of something.

 

“Kate, I need to ask you a question,” I said as we were walking down the street to our next stop.

“Sure.”

 

“Why do Brits always say ‘Mac-Donalds’?”

 

She looked at me strangely and said, “Because that’s what it’s called. You know, Mackey-Dees?”

 

“But there’s no Mac. It’s Mic. Mickey-Dees.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yep. Look at the sign. McDonalds. But you can call Mackey-Dees or anything you like. I was just curious, like I am with many aspects of the curious English dialect.”

 

Behind the plumbing store was yet more boat retail - Boat Owners Warehouse. I could have spent an hour in that place, but we only had time for a quick look before speed walking to the bus stop and riding in style back to our hood.

Stillman, Ester, and the girls arrived shortly after 5, to a heaving, jammed, and electric Fort Lauderdale. You see, tonight was the annual Christmas Boat Parade, and the place was pumping. Directly across the ICW was a stage with band playing a bitchin set of rock and pop tunes to a boisterous crowd, fueled by a dozen of food and booze vendors. Many more boats had anchored in our basin and parties and music ensued. The streets were locked with traffic and the park near our dinghy dock was full of people in lawn chairs with coolers.

 

After a lovely meal of grass fed, organic, Marky Mark Wahlberg burgers (Yep, it’s a thing, the Wahlberg brothers sell burgers) our fine guests had brought along, we got set up on SeaLight’s deck and watched as the show began.  Boats of all sizes and shapes passed by slowly on the ICW for a full two hours, elaborately decorated, brilliantly lit, some with dozens of guests partying and dancing, others broadcasting EDM and DJ-spun tunes through massive speakers, and still others with huge blinding video screens. It was entrancing. I can’t imagine the hours of labour spent decorating these boats.

 

Besides us lucky ones enjoying the parade from our boats, the folks on shore were having a pretty good time too. In fact, one guy was having so much fun getting wasted that he decided to go for a swim, then remembered he didn’t know how to swim, so our boat neighbour fished him out and rescued him with his dinghy just in time for the cops to arrive, cuff him, and haul him away.

The final boat of the parade was this hideous monstrosity with random, disorganized lights and a huge Amazon logo on the side. It was roundly boo’d by the crowd; strange considering Amazon likely delivered 90% of the crap beneath their Christmas trees. But wait, there was one more boat yet to come. A lighted sailboat, disabled, being pulled along by a Tow Boat US vessel, putting that whimsical final touch on an outstanding boat parade.

 

With that, we dinghy’d into shore, met up with Ben and Kate, and we all walked across the bridge to see if we could get in on the party and live band. Surprisingly, the event had evaporated quickly - all the vendors were packing up as the band played their last few songs. Stillman and his gang took off for home as we continued down the strip, passing packed bars, looking for just the right one. Ah ha! Buckets of beer for $20? Table for four, please.

 

We killed two buckets of beer as we enjoyed the Saturday Night Shenanigans. A young dude at the table beside us would run out to the street and pole dance on the guardrail posts to entertain passing vehicles. Drunks stumbled by and we bet on which would fall over first. A top-hatted partygoer barfed on the road in front of us, then crossed the street and hauled off five more times in a garbage bin, looking all cool and relaxed between heaves. There was a lot to see.

Back at the boat we had the mandatory nightcap and thus, this journal finishes exactly where it began.

Walmart Chickens and Another Farewell to Waddington

Fort Lauderdale – 8 miles by dinghy, 7 kilometres by bus, 14 kilometres by Uber, 5 kilometres walked

Our first morning in Fort Lauderdale. A cold front had dropped the evening temperature, keeping the boat cool and great for sleeping. But with it came persistent northerly winds blowing 15 to 20 knots with mainly overcast skies and a longer range forecast that wasn’t encouraging. But we were now settled here on our mooring ball and not going anywhere for at least three weeks so we’d take the days as they came.

 

After a leisurely breakfast and some pottering around on the boat, we were happy to see Ben and Kate arrive to the anchorage and I gave them a hand getting attached to the mooring. They had caught up to us again and were staying for one night before continuing their push south, so we were thankful for at least a short visit. They had fueled up at a nearby marina but the marina refused to give them any water to fill their dry tanks, so Ana and I got their water jugs and took off in search of a free tap. We first tried to find one that was marked on Lake Sylvia, but after ducking under two bridges and peering into peoples’ houses and yards, we gave up on finding it. We continued up the New River, at a punishingly slow speed through the No Wake zone for what felt like hours until we finally located Smoker Family Park and found a public tap and free pump out facility. We filled up the jugs, loaded them back into the dinghy, and did the return trip, along the way receiving a call from Ben wondering if we’d gotten ourselves lost.

 

We unloaded the water then met Ben and Kate at the dinghy dock for a visit to Walmart via a long walk up Las Olas Boulevard. We had to get some water jugs of our own after deciding we were not going to invest thousands of dollars in a water maker for our time in Bahamas and would instead haul water from shore sources when we could find it. The full walk to the store was nearly two hours, so half way we caught a bus, transferred to another bus, almost had to pay a second time due to our unfamiliarity with the Fort Lauderdale transit system, then got off at the Walmart stop and headed into the store. We found four 7-gallon Reliance water jugs (shockingly, made in Canada) then loaded up the cart with a bunch of other stuff we needed – engine oil, fuel stabilizer, groceries. While Ben and Kate had a modest amount of stuff, we were overloaded well past the point of a feasible public transit solution and we were tempted to steal the two Walmart carts and push them back to the marina. Instea, we called an Uber. Then waited.

Kate noticed something. She said, pointing, “Umm, just doing a sanity check here, but do you guys see a chicken over there?”

 

“Chicken? I don’t see any chicken,” said Ben, straight-faced.

 

Our smiles gave it away. “I actually see three chickens,” said Ana as two more popped out of the bushes and held up traffic as they walked lawfully across the marked pedestrian zone.

 

“Go and ask them why they’re crossing the road,” Ben said to me. I just took a photo instead. None of the other dozens of people or drivers seem curious with the presence of free-range chickens at Walmart that were not wrapped and packaged in cellophane, so it’s guess it’s normal round these parts.

We rammed, jammed, and crammed all of our gear into the Uber driver’s vehicle and she only seemed a little annoyed. The unloading back at the park near the dinghy dock was much faster, as we tossed it all into the grass, creating the scene of a homeless encampment, but then we sherpa’d up and hauled it over to the waiting dinghys.

 

Ben and Kate popped over to SeaLight after dinner for our last evening together for a while; next one would be somewhere in Bahamas, sometime in the future. We made rum punch and snacked on fresh pineapple as we watched a mini-parade of Christmas-lighted and decorated yachts passing by. Tomorrow was Fort Lauderdale’s annual Christmas boat parade, so tonight was the pre-show. Yes, light displays of snowmen, Santa, sleds, and snowballs didn’t make much sense here, but it’s all fun nonetheless.

We visited until well after Mariner’s Midnight with not a break in the conversation. We hugged our friends, said our goodbyes, then watched them paddle back to their boat, but I think we may have mixed that rum punch too strong as Ben’s one arm stopped working and their dinghy went in circles.

Arrival in Fort Lauderdale, Juggling Social Calendars

Boca Raton to Fort Lauderdale – 14 nautical miles sailed, 8 bridges, 8 kilometres walked

It was dark when we left the Boca anchorage, just 6:15 am, but we wanted to get to Fort Lauderdale early to claim one of the three remaining mooring balls in the Las Olas mooring field. Besides a small mechanical problem with the opening of the first bridge, which delayed us a few minutes, the trip was effortless and perfectly timed for each scheduled bridge opening, with tidal currents giving a push when we needed it to reach the next one in time.

 

Arriving in Fort Lauderdale felt special; like we’d made it; the end point of the first phase of our trip; an accomplishment. We celebrated by getting the hell off the boat and taking a long, slow walk up Las Olas Boulevard. We’d visited here previously on a private jet, in 2016 with the kids, and yes there is a story behind that one. As we walked down the same street today, just the two of us, we fanned through memories of that trip, and spotted restaurants we had visited, the hotel we stayed at, and the incredible Riverwalk along the canals, which we are sure to do again this time. I remember at one point during that trip thinking how incredible it would be to sail our own boat here, some day in the distant future. That distant future had arrived.

 

We were at the start of the Riverwalk when Ana noticed a darkening expression on my face as I realized she may be thinking of taking it.

 

“Whoah there,” she said. “We don’t have to do it now, you look like you might be getting hangry.”

 

“I’m not dying of hunger yet,” I replied. “But I am definitely suffering.”

 

After a quick stop at a curiosities shop where I was tempted to buy a set of sexy mermen, we continued to the Voodoo Bayou restaurant and enjoyed a decent lunch, after which I stood beside various shop entrances while Ana browsed the deals. I car-watched and people-watched and noticed a lot of Bentleys, Ferraris, Porsches in the first category and Pilates-tuned bodies and botched lip jobs in the second. This is an interesting place.

Fully fueled, we retraced our steps back up Las Olas Boulevard and continued onto the bridge across the ICW. Of course, as soon as we arrived, the damn bridge went up and we had to wait for at least ten minutes for the annoying sailboats to pass. It's almost as annoying as waiting for traffic to pass when you’re on your boat on the ICW. I’m glad we experienced it from both sides.

 

The beach side of Fort Lauderdale is a party place. Low class bars with twenty-somethings heading for blackout by 6pm, sticky floors, margarita specials, tequila shots, buckets of beer. The beach is beautiful, but the ripping north winds today were kicking up a lot of sand and surf so we strolled down the street side instead. We stopped at the Beach Café for a strong coffee and a frosty Modelo, served by a jokester Filipino lady, then serenaded by a nearby soda pop vendor who sang continuously, stopping only momentarily to chat with another vendor friend up on the third floor who was shouting down to him through a megaphone. I first thought it was that singer from Stone Temple Pilots (who’d moved onto his next career), and I’d just experienced a celebrity sighting, then I remembered that guy perished a few years ago, so I guess he was just a regular Florida weirdo.

 

We’ve had many challenges and issues on this trip, but managing a busy social calendar has not been one of them…until today. Friends from our yacht club Darryl and Nathalie are in Fort Lauderdale and wanted us over for dinner. We’d also making dinner plans with Stillman and family, our buddy Tony arrives Sunday, and our buddy boat Waddington will be catching up with us tomorrow. It’s a nice problem to have.

Tonight ended up being a good night for Darryl and Nathalie so Darryl picked us up at 5, brought us back to their exceedingly comfy condo and there we had drinks, an amazing dinner, and shared lots of great stories. They are such a cool couple so we are hoping to see them more in the coming weeks. It was a perfect end to an excellent day.