Back in Civilization

Ft Lauderdale, FL

While we could have stayed in the Exuma’s forever, time was pressing and hurricane season was approaching, so we made tracks to Florida. Motor sailing across the Exuma Bank to Chubb Cay, then across the Grand Bahama Bank to Bimini, and finally through the Gulf stream to Florida. We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale 3 days later.

There wasn’t much wind and this area is not good for fishing (too shallow), so we caught up on our reading while making plans for the summer.

Back in Ft. Lauderdale, once again, where we began our adventure in 2007, we met up with friends who had commissioned Berkeley East.

This year, we went to Ft. Lauderdale to fix the stainless that was damaged when Berkeley East was hit in Bequia. The damaged part was over 15 feet long and 10 feet wide. It had been built in Taiwan, shipped on a freighter to San Diego, CA and then trucked across the US to Florida, piggybacked on a new Hylas 49. We were very concerned if it would fit, as each piece built by the factory is custom and while we had sent measurements to the boat yard, it is a very complex piece presenting a lot of opportunity for problems.

The installation on the deck went well and the stainless was back in place quickly. The last step was to put the life raft back into the stainless and we hit a problem. The new stainless was about ½ inch too small for our life raft. One thing we have learned from our 2+ years cruising is that nothing ever goes as planned!

After a few phone calls, we found that our life raft could be repacked into a smaller canister. And since the life raft was approaching time to be recertified, we decided to get it inspected, repacked and recertified into the smaller canister. This was going to take a few days, and would cause us to miss our weather window to Charleston, so we ended up spending almost 10 days in Ft. Lauderdale.

We decided that we might as well make the best of it and enjoy the time here while catching up on other boat projects. On our way back from dropping the life raft off we saw a billboard advertising a Don Henley concert that evening. Well in the sprit of enjoying our time in Florida, we called a scalper, got tickets and spent the evening with 5,000 other people watching Don in concert. It was a great show.

While we did a few boat projects at the marina, we found plenty of other things to do now that we were back in civilization. We met up with other Hylas owners on Amante,Gratitude, and L’ame Libre, went to the movies and spent time test driving new cars. No we don’t need a car, but we couldn’t pass the opportunity to drive a Aston Martin! We also spent time standing in supermarkets and wine stores, dazed by the size and selection. After shopping in the Caribbean, having so many choices was something new for us.

It was also time to replenish our fishing supplies, as the last two years had been good fishing, but we had lost a few lures. We found the shop that sold our favorites only to find out they were a victims of the global financial meltdown and were now out of business. What is this would coming to when the fishing lure manufactures are going out of business? So we headed off to Bass Pro – Outdoor World to get the parts to start making our own lures. We now use a lure called “The BEAST”.

So with our new home made fishing lures and what we thought was clearing weather, we headed north. The plan was to sail direct to the Chesapeake Bay, skipping Charleston, SC this year. Because of the unstable weather and longer distance, we consulted a weather routing services. They said it might be stormy the morning we left so we should delay a few hours, and then it should clear. Well they were wrong and it didn’t clear for two days. The weather was not bad and we made great time, with three days in a row of over 200 miles each day, but the storms where moving north at 10 knots and we where sailing north at 10 knots. It was wet with lots of lightening and thunder.

Radar picture as we sailed along the FL coast – Note: the purple is a rain squall that followed us

While the fishing was good, it got tiresome being pelted with rain while trying to land a couple of good sized Mahi Mahi’s, so we pulled the lines in. The good news was that the new lures were working and we had enough fish in the freezer for the summer.

The sail from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Hampton, VA in the Chesapeake Bay was the longest distance (750 NM) that we had taken the boat with just the two of us. With the help of the Gulf Stream, we made great time and even managed to arrive in Hampton before sunset. It was great to return to Bluewater Marina where Berkeley East had been dock a couple of other times. The marina is nice, the staff is great and it’s nice to pull into a dock where you know what to expect. Docking in close quarters, in unknown marinas, always creates stress – something we try to avoid.