After spending 7 months outside the U.S., we are back in our home country. We had to clear back in by going to the Customs and Border Protection office in person. We should have just been able to make a phone call to let them know we are back in the U.S. and give them our special number assignments given to us. However, we were told that Dante wasn’t officially cleared in because he hadn’t made his appointment to get that number. When I explained that he’s 10 and that the whole family was together to get our number assignments (in Puerto Rico) it was to no avail. Seems the letter of the law rules over the intent. It did, however, give us good fodder for teasing Dante. “Uh oh, we may have to back to the Bahamas to live with another family…” Teasing is good for kids, right? Right? Builds character.
Other than that glitch it was nice to be back in the U.S. My first perusal around a grocery store was appreciation-inducing. Clean! Large! Variety! Free Wi-Fi! An organics section! A bakery! Card member discounts! On the one hand I am somewhat ashamed to be such a consumer but on the other I am just glad to have fresh, organic spinach again. The irony is that most of the really good produce is from California…
We reached Fort Lauderdale from the Bahamas after a pleasant 2-day sail. In terms of sheer number of boats, Fort Lauderdale wins first place. It seems like every inhabitant has a boat. And they range from super mega yachts (that cost $250,000 just to fill up with diesel and yes you read that right) to small dinghys and kayaks. Fort Lauderdale has a system of canals and rivers that weave through the city and you see people on the water in their boats constantly. On land it seems like every other storefront caters to the boating industry. They even have a stretch of road nicknamed the “Marina Mile” because of all of the boating-related stores. We had to suppress the urge to genuflect in front of the flagship West Marine store in Fort Lauderdale. If you can’t find what you need for your boat in Fort Lauderdale, it probably can’t be found.
We had planned to anchor in a small lake in Fort Laudersale but the depth according to our charts and the depth according to reality were in disagreement. After finding “0.0” feet on our depth sounder (meaning 0 feet under the keel), after bumping muddy bottom at .1 knots, we turned around and cruised up the New River to a marina. In over 7,000 miles the marina we stayed at was the most challenging to enter since it was perpendicular to both the current (which was going at a couple of knots) and the wind (which was opposing the current).
We spent a little over 2 weeks in Fort Lauderdale but we only spent a couple of nights actually on the boat. We made trips to see family (Darold’s cousin Rachel and her family as well as Darold’s uncle Joe) and rented a car to visit Everglades National Park, Universal Studios and Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Call us a geeky family but we actually enjoyed the Space Center even more than Universal Studios.
After all that, it was time to get on the People Mover, a.k.a. the Gulf Stream up the coast! To see all the pictures from Florida, visit these Flickr albums:
Florida: https://www.flickr.com/photos/easethemain/sets/72157644781578483/
Everglades: https://www.flickr.com/photos/easethemain/sets/72157644396789530/
Universal Studios: https://www.flickr.com/photos/easethemain/sets/72157644396789480/
