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Day 35 to 37 – August 17th to August 19th
Friday, August 17,
2007
The clock said 5:48 am and obviously it is time to get up and at
em if we are to get ready and out over the Banks and out in the
Atlantic at day break. As we began to make our preparations and pack
up the little we had to do, I looked up at the clock in the Salon
and it said 4:45 AM! The clock is wrong in our bedroom and we are
now up a whole hour before we had to be – now what do we do –
there’s no point in going back to bed so we sat and watched a movie
and waited for the sun to come up. Well, the sun just began to come
up from behind the dark clouds to the East and we just couldn’t wait
any longer so we let the lines go and took off from the dock
cautiously as without the advantage of sunlight, Barry cannot see
the changes in water color that will tell him depth changes. Even
though we have the GPS and depth sounder, you can’t always depend
completely on what they say and even as we passed through the cut
out of Cat Cay, the GPS showed the boat over on the land! Finally,
we were out and on our way in deep CALM water and on our way to the
U. S. of A at 7:00 am. Again, we are out in the deep navy blue
waters of the Atlantic in about 1,500 feet depth and are astounded
that the seas are under a foot chop. There was a small lone boat
passing by going to the Bahamas and bobbing like a top and we
wondered why in the world someone would come across with an
impending Hurricane in a boat only about 24’ long! The GPS and Radar
were showing us a lot of storm activity and in fact, we could see
them off in the distance ahead, starboard and port sides but we
managed to go right by them and didn’t get a drop on us, nor did the
wind or water kick up. At one point the Radar screen was showing a
storm just ahead of us – and Barry thought it looked like a “dog” –
perhaps this is another one of those White Horse cliffs or the Man
in the Moon! We could see the very faint outline of buildings way
off in the distances and in fact, I thought Barry was hallucinating
because I couldn’t see anything for about 5 minutes. We thought that
very unusual because we were about 25 miles away from Florida and
typically, you don’t have that kind of visibility – but there they
were the little white blocks of Miami and Lauderdale beckoning us to
come home. As we came closer to land and probably about 10 miles
out, the water goes from 1,500 feet to only about 12 feet of water
which is also amazing that it can change so drastically, so quickly.
Finally, here we are in Fort Lauderdale after having one of the best
“crossings” we have ever had – fantastic. As we are going through
the canal system approaching the Bahia Mar Marina where we will wait
out Hurricane Dean just in case it should affect us, we both we in
awe of the huge yachts and HUGE mansions! There is way too much
money in this town. There was a Dive boat going by us whose Captain
was giving a tour as well and we overheard him as he spoke through
the megaphone “this house to your right sold for 14 Million dollars
and the taxes average about $1,034 a DAY – YIKES! Can you imagine
waking up and saying “Geez, I guess I better figure out how to make
at least $1,000 today? We were passing by one mansion that was
actually building another addition – as if the place wasn’t big
enough as it was. We were docked at Bahia Mar marina and all settled
in at 10:45 am and it felt as if it were 5:00 pm and even though we
were very tired, we finally walked down to the “Oasis Café” with the
swinging chairs and wonderful menu for a great late lunch. The surf
along Fort Lauderdale beach was not bad really but we figured it
would kick up significantly within the next couple of days with
Hurricane Dean threatening to roll by south of us. We walked a short
way from the marina to a new restaurant in town “Bubba Gump” and
yes, you guessed it, the whole place was outfitted in the Forest
Gump theme from fun souvenirs to the whole menu – all named after
characters and things that happened or were said in the movie. It
meal was absolutely great and what was even better was the price.
After experiencing the prices and quality of meals in the Bahamas,
this was more like it, this was the USA!
Saturday, August 18,
2007
The wind is starting to pick up but we’ve been hearing and
reading that the Hurricane is a little further South than what was
originally forecast which can only be good news for us in South
Florida. Salty and I did a tour of the grounds and marina for about
a half hour and then we had to head off to Immigration to “check in”
from the Bahamas. This is the Homeland Security deal they’ve got
going on now and it really is a pain in the butt. Barry had checked
in by phone the day before with Customs which was much more
civilized but at the same time, they wanted to know if we brought
anything back OR if we left or lost anything in the Bahamas. Yeah,
oh yeah, we lost a whole pile of money there! Anyway, we got in a
cab and after about 15 minutes of listening to the cab driver talk
on his cell phone in some crazy language “Agablahblahagaclablahblah”
the whole way, we arrived at the Immigration office and had him wait
about 4 minutes and drive us back to the tune of $28.00. Come on,
there must be an easier and cheaper way to do this! We hooked up
with a good friend of ours, Joe Bloomberg and we took care of a
couple of errands and went out to a really great restaurant
“Rosie’s” for a very long lunch then we went out later to pick up
another friend, Gary Stephens and went out to dinner – we are having
way too much fun and it will be difficult after all these weeks to
go back home and get back to reality.
Sunday, August 19,
2007
Joe and Gary were having a Brunch for Friends this morning and
we were all invited – what a BLAST! They live a stone’s throw from
the beach in a gorgeous retro-style house and as we were driving to
the house along A1A, just looking at the crashing waves made us
realize it was a lot better to be on land than it would be out there
today. We had a great time – great people, great food and great
drinks! Salty had so much fun with their two dogs (well, maybe more
fun with Cloe the female). Finally, Salty was able to get into their
pool after being so pool-deprived on this adventure.
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