Delray Beach, Florida to Miami, Florida
Woke up to another beautiful and mild morning in Delray Beach. More and more and MORE beautiful homes and yachts everywhere you looked, especially as we approached Ft. Lauderdale, where the condos were equally plentiful.
We’ve spent this entire trip staying on high alert for crab pots, which are not supposed to be set in the ICW, and would wreak havoc with our props. Now it turns out the “crab pots” we think we’re avoiding are just floating coconuts! Go figure!
One aside I hope I haven’t mentioned before is the wide variety of bridge tenders we’ve talked to along the way. You always let the tender know when you’re approaching a bridge, unless of course it’s a bridge that’s so high that clearance issues are irrelevant. And again, you encounter a bunch of personalities along the way, some friendly, and some not so friendly. Around 9:30 a.m., we cruised through Ft. Lauderdale, where we chatted with one particularly kind and funny bridge tender. It was the Oakland Park Blvd bridge, and I wish I could get a message to that bridge tender and tell him how much we enjoyed his exchanges with us and with the boats around us. I’m sure it can get tedious having the same conversations with boats about how much clearance they have or when their next opening might be scheduled, but instead he chose to make his job interesting by making those conversations fun and friendly. He told us, “Have a happy, thankful, great holiday, and a Merry Christmas!” Just super cute. We heard him joking with one really slow sailboat who was desperately trying to make it to the open bridge, “put some water skies out for that huge wake you’re making” which was totally sarcastic but not in a demeaning way. Other bridge tenders would’ve said too bad, catch the next opening. Here's a snippet of one of Skeet's exchanges with a different bridge tender today:
Out of the blue this morning, Skeet wanted to talk about the Bolsheviks. Yes really. That brain of his works overtime, especially as it relates to history. He must have a photographic memory or SOMETHING, because he remembers EVERYTHING about practically any historical period you can name. It’s crazy, and fascinating. One thing that weighs very heavily on Skeet’s mind is the lack of kindness and compassion he sees in other human beings, especially in the news. He does not understand how people have the capacity to believe they are more deserving of respect or decency just because of some random quality. To him, it would be like thinking less of someone just because they had blue eyes. He’s a wise young man, but I often have to redirect him to help him remember to see the good in humanity. I remind him that cruelty and extremism are what make the headlines, but the good, decent and kind humans are all around us too, and are in the majority. It’s just that empathy is, well, boring I guess. And what a shame. But I digress. Back to the Bolsheviks, and I swear I’ll tie the two together if you haven’t fallen asleep already. Skeet said, “Bolsheviks got their name because that’s how you say ‘majority’ in Russian. The Mensheviks were less radical, and were often in the majority. In Lenin’s view, though, his Bolshevik party was the majority because that’s how he CHOSE to view them. This was a way to demean the Mensheviks by labeling them as the minority, even though in reality, they weren’t.” I won’t make any claims as to the accuracy of his observation, but I still found it to be a pretty interesting conversation.
Today, Ron told me to let the water in the kitchen run as long as I need it to. Mind. BLOWN. It turns out that last night he noticed that KORKZcrew is listing to the right, and hypothesized that it’s due to the weight of the packed fridge and freezer (thanks to that AWESOME vacuum sealer 😇), combined with a full water tank on the same side of the boat. We have water tanks on each side of the boat, and apparently our water supply is drawn from the port side tank first, causing us to lean to the right.
Here's a glimpse of KORKZcrew going through downtown Ft. Lauderdale:
On the other side of downtown Ft Lauderdale there was an entire marina filled with JUST yachts and cruise ships. It’s really hard to capture their scale, but let’s put it this way: KORKZcrew would be the perfect size to function as their dinghy. 😳
It was another spectacular day of endless cool scenes to take in, including a distinctive change in the color of the water AGAIN, looking more and more akin to the Caribbean. Just gorgeous. When Miami appeared on the horizon around lunchtime, it seemed like the clouds parted and the angels began to sing, which is interesting because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky or any angels around that I’m aware of. But with Miami in our sights, wouldn’t you know it, so were some dolphins, who served as the perfect escort all the way into town.
Greta made sure Steve didn't miss any of the action.
We waited for our last several bridges of the ICW to open, and made it to Miamarina Bayside around 2:30. HELLO, MIAMI!!!! 🥳🥳🥳
8 hours underway / 41 nautical miles
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