Sailing South aboard Lucy III: 2020-21 (Part III - returning North)

 Coral Ridge Yacht Club, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida:  April 6, 2021

https://www.google.com/maps/@26.1416844,-80.1057428,1178m/data=!3m1!1e3

Michael was the early bird this morning leaving the marina first.

We left Key Biscayne and headed for Miami.

We went right into the center of the harbor.

Condos at Fisher Island.

The ship encounter.

The Coral Ridge Yacht Club

100 year old Banyon tree at the Hugh Taylor Birch State Park in Ft. Lauderdale.

Ft. Lauderdale's extensive water taxi service brings people to the State Park.

Marc-   We left Key Biscayne at 08:00 and headed Southwest in Biscayne Bay before turning North towards Miami and our intended route out through Government Cut into the Atlantic.  I started to wonder about this plan when the Miami Harbor Patrol started giving instructions on VHR Radio Channel 16 that the Miami Ship Channel was closed due to Cruise Ship movements.  I regained hope when these same Harbor Patrol officers instructed mariners to take the Fisherman's Channel to Government Cut.  All went well until we reached the end of Fisherman's Channel and discovered a huge Container ship coming into it and taking almost the entire channel.  We were left with limited space passing between a Fisher Island car Ferry (holding in place to starboard) and the container ship with its three ocean going tugboats helping it turn into Fisherman's Channel.  Since Lucy III is only 12 feet wide there was plenty of room for us to pass.  Once outside Government Cut we discovered that the forecast for calm seas and light winds were not accurate.  Winds were out of the East at 10-15 knots with 3 foot seas.  This was favorable for us once our sails were set (giving us an average speed of 6.5 knots) but it would have been a much smoother ride for Michael had Fiddler's Green taken the ICW.

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale at 02:00 without any problems.  The harbor was alive with activity from blue lights flashing on the ever present police boats in Port Everglades to the many different private yachts in the ICW and intersecting canals.  Our only delay was waiting 15 minutes for the Los Olas Blvd. bridge to open.  We arrived at the Coral Ridge Yacht Club and found our assigned slip.  We gained entry to this very nice facility as a result of our membership with the Diamond Island Yacht Club (formerly the Royal Savage Yacht Club).  Luckily Wendy Friant had changed the name on the web site such that a google search by the Commodore resulted in opening the door for us in Ft. Lauderdale.

Engine note:  Running the exhaust fan for an hour seems to cool the hot engine enough such that it will restart.