The First Leg of Our Trip: St. Mary’s, Georgia to Fort Lauderdale, Florida

After a week and a half of cleaning, repairing, painting and endless shopping we think we are ready to have the boat launched. We have so many lists we need a list of our lists to keep track of all our lists. We are about to give up having a car, a Walmart, a hardware store, and a big supermarket for six months. Many items cost 1-1/2 to 2 times as much in the Bahamas so we have tried to pack as much toilet paper, soap, shampoo, toothpaste plastic bags, evaporated milk, canned food, cheerios, beer, wine and water on our boat as we possibly can. We had a final shopping about twenty times and are still having them down here in Fort Lauderdale. Our friend Roger who manages the boatyard and his wife, Terry were wonderful sources of support and general human friendliness during this week of continual preparation. So, we finally left our car in St Mary’s, launched our boat, and headed off on Thursday, November 6.

On our first day, Divya’s brother Billy and his wife Gail met us at an abandoned restaurant dock for final farewells. Much of the trip down the Intercoastal Waterway involved motoring but we did get in some great sailing on wider expanses of the waterway. Compared to our trip up the waterway a year and a half ago during which we were mortified by the amount of development and stupefied by the oppressive heat, this trip was much more enjoyable. Earlier this year, after much planning and head scratching we found a used Genoa sail that looked like it would work well on our boat, which sailed notoriously slow with the original sails that came with it. The bigger sail made the trip down the Intercoastal much more enjoyable since it is easy to pull out or retrieve whenever the winds warrant it.

The last day of our journey to Fort Lauderdale we took the boat out into the ocean with 20-25 knot winds pushing us south. We got our first hints of seasickness, but the boat handled well and we appreciated the heavy and well-built nature of the boat in these conditions.

Arriving in Ft Lauderdale was a shocking experience for us. The cruising guides all talked about free anchorages and welcoming marinas but when we got here one anchorage had been closed and there was absolutely no space at any of the marinas. On top of that, many of the marinas charged over $100 per night. Just before dark we were directed to a second anchorage where it was dubious whether one could stay there for more than twenty-four hours. We began to see our budget evaporating in unexpected marina fees. However, fortune intervened and saved us. The city of Ft Lauderdale maintains and rents 5 moorings across from one of its municipal marinas. And on a whim we called the marina the morning after we got here and they informed us that one of the moorings was available. We never left an anchorage as quickly as we did that morning to scamper over to our new mooring before anybody else might have snatched it up.

We’ve been on our new mooring for almost a week now doing our final provisioning and making last minute repairs. We are waiting for a southerly wind to cross over to the Bahamas and will probably leave for the Bahamas within the next week. We’ve been enjoying taking buses, walking, and swimming at the Fort Lauderdale beach which is only a short dinghy ride and ten minute walk from our boat. The only negative experience we have had since we’ve been here was several days ago when the Coast Guard pulled up to our boat and after sounding very nice and informing us that we’d done nothing wrong, said they intended to search the boat without us being in it. Unfortunately the boat was a mess because we were in the middle of stocking it with provisions and five or six simultaneous repair projects were in progress. Although the official who was searching the boat was only down below for five or ten minutes, the feeling of having a stranger poke through your things unnerved us for several hours. We managed to “re-nerve” ourselves over a glass of wine or two and have pretty much recuperated at this point in time.

Ft Lauderdale itself is an eye-opening experience. Off of the waterway are hundreds of canals, many of which are lined with multi-million dollar homes and large to very large yachts parked in front of them. I don’t think either of us has ever seen so much personal wealth displayed in one place. Glancing at the little signs in real estate windows, it seems the entry-level price for a skuzzy little ranch house here is about $350,000 and most homes are well over a million. The harbor is filled with mega-yachts, which make our 33-ft sailboat (which normally we are slightly ashamed to own) seem like the humblest craft here. In contrast to all this wealth, in the shadows at night we see homeless people going to sleep under bridges in these same neighborhoods. The beachfront near us seems geared toward the college crowd who seem to continually show up in spite of the fact that it’s not spring break. However, the beach itself is a great equalizer. Once you put your towel on the beach, all residents seem to have equal status and the water is warm and the waves are exhilarating.

One of our dharma friends, Ruth Silberman, passed away last week and we are holding her in our hearts.

Our thanks to Ellery, who will have installed these writings and our photos on the web-site.

Start the Slideshow!
This slideshow takes about 8 minutes

Back to Pictures Index

01 Georgia Boatyard	02 Boatyard	03 Closed Mill Across fr Boatyard	04 fernandina mill if you use paper you use this	05 old yawl	06 Billy's Restaurant	07 Brother billy pondering the relationship between a rope and a post	08 cap'n chris on the waterway
09 Gail's reaction when we offered to take her along	10 Farewell at the Dock	11 Our New Refurbished Genoa	12 Genoa 2	13 Deisel on the left water on the right	14 Cap'n Div hopefully at the wheel	15 Yes she is at the wheel !	16 Many white birds on marsh
17 Silhouette of chris after retrieving overboard hat	18 Sun and Sail	19 Sun Sail and Water	20 the deck and our mascott, Felicity	21 Pelican on Post	22 Birds on Post 2	23 Going under the first of 25 bridges	24 Fast Boat Trimaran
25 the only 3 undeveloped islands in florida	25a Div with map	26 Night Squatter	27 3 more islands	28 Will the ladder hold ..	29 Nuke Plant and Stick Men	30 Sales model for wind generators	31 momentary shutdown
32 Sunset Classico	33 osprey nest # 346	34 Rich human nest # 3569	35 Rich human nest 3467	36 Humble rich human nest	37 The last lot for sale on the intercoastal	38 Florescent elevator at lake worth anchorage	39 Finally out at sea
40 Breaking Wave	41 Distant Coast	42 Big Cat	42 Entering Ft Lauderdale

Back to Pictures Index