We had a restful night sleep in our spot we took in front of the million dollar homes last night but we had to get up early and leave it. We wanted to make it to Miami today so we left our anchorage at about 5 a.m. this morning. There isn't a whole lot of light at that time of the day, so I started the day on the front of the boat with my flashlight in hand. We didn't need it, but at least I put forth the effort. After we were gone about four hours, I decided it was time to break out the Dramamine. The wind really picked up and the Coast Guard came on the radio with small craft advisories. We sailed a few more hours (we were making great time) and then decided to go inland at the Fort Lauderdale cut. Daniel found us a great spot to drop the anchor for the night, we just had to get through 4 bridges to get there. With promises of a Walmart (really close) and maybe another West Marine, we decided to put up with the 4 bridges. As luck would have it, we made it through 3 with no trouble and no waiting. When we got to the last of the bridges for the night, the old fella manning the bridge decided that 15 minutes after the hour would be a good time to open. We arrived at 15 minutes to the hour. We had a 30 minute wait. We could almost see our anchorage from the bridge. After we made it through the bridge, we pulled into our anchorage for the night. Instead of million dollar homes tonight, we have a very, very nice condominium project all around us. It's a beautiful setting for C-Time.
After the anchor was set, it was time to take a short dinghy ride to land, somewhere, and dock the dinghy and find Walmart. We hopped in D-Time and found a spot next to the road. Apparently the condominium complex is in a "secured area" because we couldn't find a place to dock D-Time. We finally went down a side area next to a condo and was able to tie D-Time up to the fence that was keeping people out of the complex. We literally crawled out of D-Time and were on the main street. We walked a short 6 blocks to Walmart in light rain. We shopped for groceries for about half an hour and as we were leaving Walmart we heard someone say "it's raining cats and dogs out there". Uh oh. We pull out our all-weather coats and put them on. We wrapped the groceries in plastic and began to haul them the LONG (used to be short) 6 blocks back to the boat, in the pouring rain. By the time we get back to D-Time, it has a couple of inches of water standing in it. Nothing else to do but to step in it. Great, soaking wet socks and shoes to go with my soaking wet blue jeans. Daniel took the below picture on our way back to C-Time. I was NOT a happy boat girl but tried to put on a smile for the camera (everyone that knows me knows that that is a fake smile plastered on). What do you expect?? I'm sitting there with wet pants, shoes, socks and groceries. Looking forward to some sunshine tomorrow!
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| Carla on her return trip from Walmart, in the rain. |
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| C-Time, looking gorgeous in the rain. |
But Carla it was a warm rain wasn't it? It cold back in Charleston this week. You guys are making great time keep up the post, we're all enjoying your adventure.
ReplyDeleteWalter & Victoria
It was still wet, Walter. I had on socks, shoes...the water collected in the bottom of the dinghy and I had no place to put my feet except in the water. I was not happy. Daniel said, well it rains in the tropics and I said, that's great but in the tropics I will have on flip flops and shorts, I won't care. :-) Thanks for keeping up with us - we miss you guys!
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