Waiting in Fort Lauderdale....

Dec. 12, 2010:   We left Jacksonville on the Monday after Thanksgiving.  Our son, James, and his wife, Jennifer are both stationed at Jacksonville Naval Air Station so it was a great chance for us to spend Thanksgiving with them.  We had a wonderful, wonderful visit and were also able to get a jump on provisioning but more importantly, get a hot shower every night.  If you've done any sailing you'll know what I'm talking about. 

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 7th.  We're lucky enough to have friends who have a house on one of the canals right on the ICW and they offered us their dock (picture above.)  Along the way we saw some pretty unique sites...

Do it youself drydock

             
                                                                     Bed and breakfast offering fishing trips!!!

Here's David as we crossed the 1,000 mile mark as we were getting into North Palm Beach. 

Going through Palm Beach was amazing especially when we saw all the "other" boats .... like MEGA YACHTS.....  These guys have so much money they bubble wrap their boats.....the boat to the right is probably 120 feet or bigger.... must be nice.

The other mind boggling thing we saw were the homes...tons of mega mansions down to tiny beach cottages.  Here's just one example:

Well...maybe more....

As we neared Fort Lauderdale we looked up ahead and thought this boat was tied up because it was HUGH and didn't appear to be moving.  Well,  it was moving, very slowly, right towards us.  When it passed it actually blocked the sun.  It's hard to imagine this was someone's personal yacht.  There was only one other boat in front of us and we both looked like little puddle jumpers.......

So here we are.  Waiting in Fort Lauderdale for the weather to break so we can get across to the Bahamas.  We've had a wonderful trip.  We're at Mile 1060, tied up at a friends house right on a canal right on the ICW.  We're use to cul-de-sacs, in Florida, they have canals where people tie their boats up..some small boats and some not so small:

Once the winds shift from northerly to southerly/westerly we'll move the boat to an anchorage close to the Port Everglades opening to the Atlantic and leave around 4:00AM. The trip over to check in with Bahamian Immigrations will take about 10 hours..long day but we'll finally be there.  We're hoping to get out by Friday, Dec. 17th.  

Not sure if we'll get another edition of the blog done before Christmas so we want to take this opportunity to wish each and everyone of you a very Merry Christmas.  This will have to do in place of the annual photo card we have sent out for the last 29 years.   Until later..... Dave and Peg