We are on the move again! We finally left our comfortable slip at Nettles Island Marina and all the new friends that we had met during our six week stay and headed back to the high seas. It was a bit tough to get back into the travelling mode after such a long time in one place but we were glad to be back on the water. We left the marina with Jim and Karen as well as another Canadian couple, Bob and Mardi on Salty Lady, that we had spent some time with during our time on Nettles Island. Their boat was registered in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario but they were from Sudbury and were headed to the Bahamas. Since most of you know that Sault Ste. Marie is my hometown, it was nice to get to know another couple from Northern Ontario! They truly are a great bunch of people. It is a small world as they are now living on Manitoulin Island and Bob knows my cousin Garnet Behnke as he plays hockey with him during the summer. There had been quite a bit of wind prior to us leaving and the waves in the Atlantic were still 5 to 6 feet high so we decided to stay in the ICW and although it would take us longer as we had 7 or 8 bridges to go through, it would be a lot more comfortable for us. We went as far as West Palm Beach and all anchored in the same area after some confusion as to where that was and a grounding by Captain Bruce (managed to motor off the bottom without any assistance). Bob and Mardi invited as all over for a movie and popcorn night after dinner and after finally deciding on a movie that no one had seen before, we all enjoyed the movie! After going to bed before Bruce I was awakened by the sound of the engine starting and I got up out of bed to see what was going on. Bruce said that he though we were getting too close to Jim and Karen's boat and that we would have to raise our anchor, move further away and set it again. At this point, we could not find our anchor ball anywhere and realized that it was under the boat but did not realize this before Bruce had put the boat in gear and what we didn't know was we had wrapped the line from the ball around our prop as we decided that maybe we didn't need to move after all. The next morning we were sitting in the cockpit having our coffee when Jim and Karen's boat seem like it was moving past us, when in fact we were the ones moving past them. Our anchor had been pulled off the bottom by the trip line that was wrapped around our prop when the wind changed and we were moving quite fast. Thank goodness there were only a few boats in the anchorage and we didn't get to close to any other boats, although there were a few tense moments while we tried to figure out what had happened! We managed to reset the anchor but knew that there was still line wrapped around the prop and Bruce would have to dive down and cut it off. This time there was no Lillianne to do it for him! Jim came over and helped him get all his gear on and we were thankful for the new sharp knife we had bought the last time this happened to cut the line! The water temperature was also 26 degrees so he didn't even need a wet suit. Things could have been a lot worse it this had happened in the middle of the night when we were sleeping. Who knows where we would have ended up. We had only been on the water again for two days and two bad things had happened already. This is when we realized that we had not thrown any money into the sea when we left again and although we are not usually superstitious, we did not leave again without throwing a few coins overboard!
Bob and Mardi were leaving the next day but we stayed an extra day as we need to go into customs and get a new cruising permit. When we had talked to customs on the phone, we were told that the permit that we were given in Bar Harbor was an old one that is no longer being used and it would be better for us to have the new one so we wanted to get that taken care of before we left for the Bahamas so it wouldn't be a problem for us when we tried to get back into the United States. We found the customs officer in West Palm to be one of the nicest officers we had ever met and wanted to get it from here rather than take our chances with someone else!
We left West Palm onTuesday, January 29th and thankfully this time were able to go out the Lake Worth inlet into the Atlantic and head to Ft. Lauderdale. The only bad thing was that there was that the wind was from the South which was the direction we were travelling so we motor sailed again but at least there were no bridge schedules to worry about! Ft. Lauderdale was about a 50 mile run from West Palm and we pulled into the Port Everglades Inlet around 2 p.m. We anchored in Lake Sylvie and dropped the dingy to go exploring. Within about 30 minutes of anchoring a police boat came up to the boat to inform us that there was a 24 hour anchoring rule in Ft. Lauderdale. We had hoped to spend a few days in the area to visit Dave and Judy and see a few others that spend the winter in Ft. Lauderdale from P.C.Y.C but we were unable to pick up a mooring ball and since we could only anchor for one day, we decided to head to Miami the next morning. We did manage to do a bit of exploring by dinghy and see Dave and Judy for about 1/2 hour before we left.
We are now anchored on the Biscayne Bay side of South Beach and have been enjoying an amazing stretch of hot, sunny weather! It has been great spending time in South Beach people watching, sitting in cafe's for happy hours and enjoying the beautiful beach. We can take the dinghy up the canal, park it in front of the Publix and then walk to the beach from there. Dave and Judy drove down for lunch and spent the day with us as well as another couple from Ottawa who were in Ft. Lauderdale to inspect a 41 foot PDQ that they have an offer pending on. Some of you may remember the dock we used in Gan on our way through the Thousand Islands that belonged to some friends of my friend Joanne from Ottawa. Their names are Kent and Linda and they are the ones that are here looking at the boat. They heard through Joanne that we were in the area, so they looked us up and we finally got to meet each other. We had heard so much about them through the years but had never met. Everyone ended up coming back to the boat for dinner and a swim. It is so great to get together with friends along the way and we look forward to these times! Dave and Judy have been to visit us at least 4 times and Bruce says that they have almost caught up to the number of times we have seen his sister and brother-in-law on this trip!
We hope to leave here perhaps on Tuesday if the weather holds. I have been having problems with my hearing aids and may have to send them to Toronto but have to wait until at least Monday to talk to the girl in the office. I was supposed to talk to her on Friday but with the snow storm in Toronto, no one was in. There are worse places to be stuck and today is Super Bowl Sunday so it should be a zoo in South Beach. Not sure if Kent and Linda will come back again today to spend the day at the beach with us. Again it is going to be another hot, sunny day! I am not going to be able to post any pictures this time as the internet is very slow and very intermittent so will have to wait for better internet, but thought everyone could use an update on our whereabouts. Talk to you from the Keys!