We were able to start the engine right up in the morning. Over to the fuel dock we went. There was a powerboat in the way so we had some time to float around and plan our approach a little more. We topped up with diesel and headed back out the way we came, past the Cape Florida Light and back into the Atlantic.
We were going outside into the ocean instead of inside along the ditch through downtown Miami and such primarily because of the Julia Tuttle bridge. All new permanent bridges on the ditch will clear at least a 65 foot mast or so. Not the Tuttle. It mysteriously will clear 56 feet, not 65. The urban legend is that a dyslexic typo in the engineering resulted in this one different bridge height, but no one has ever fessed up. I've reviewed enough engineering drawings to believe it's possible.
Compounding this is the fact that we were not entirely sure what our mast height really is. After proceeding this far were were certain that it was less than 58 feet. Several bridge tenders had expressed doubt that it was even that. Even when you clear a bridge by a few feet, looking up from 50 some odd feet below it looks very close.
I didn't want to be the second person to drive this boat into a bridge. Not a typo - second. The previous owner, after a very long and stormy day managed to drive into a bridge on the gulf side of the ditch. That is why our boat was one of the very few 20 year old sailboats with standing rigging that was only a few years old, which was good. But our mast was no longer necessarily a factory configuration.
We had a good day sailing up to Ft. Lauderdale. The picture is of the Miami skyline from a mile or so offshore.
The Ft. Lauderdale channel is straight and straightforward, but there was quite a bit of traffic. A tug tender cleared the channel in front of a big freighter coming out. The first bridge we approached was new since I had been thru a few years before on the Bahamas trip. Although it opened it cleared at least 58 feet closed. We requested an opening of the bridge anyway on the VHF radio and the bridge tender kindly suggested we get a little closer and consider going thru with the bridge closed. As he said, it wasn't in his interest for anyone to hit the bridge either, and he felt that we were clearly less that 58 feet. We got closer and he said we would definitely clear the bridge. As we went thru he estimated we had more than four feet of clearance, putting us at less than 54 feet. It sure didn't look like we cleared by four feet watching from 50 feet below. But now we were confident that we were less than 55 feet, which is an important metric for boats and bridges on the ditch. We will continue to refine our estimated mast height.
We went further up the river to the Las Olas city marina. We had some difficulty backing into the slip with the current, but Heather hung in there after I would have bailed more than once. When we have to abort an approach or miss a turn or such we call it a victory lap. The piers were concrete and fixed, and the tide was very low. Heather could't even get off the boat until the tide came in some, but we were finally here.
We had a few tasks scheduled for FtL. We had been carrying a couple of sails all the way from Texas that we had very little use for at this time. There was a genoa that turned out to be a deck sweeping 170% (70% bigger than the distance from the bow to the mast). Kind of an old school sail at this point, and way to big for us to handle. There was also a spinnaker that the previous owner says had flown for about 5 hours total. We had never flown a spinnaker and weren't about to anytime soon. Each sail filled the biggest duffle bag you have ever seen. Since FtL is one of the world boating centers there were multiple businesses we could sell these sails to. We picked one, loaded them up in a rental car, and both sails were layed out in the loft. The spinnaker was very colorful and even had a snuffer to aid in deploying the sail and bringing it back down. We got several hundred bucks for the cruising kitty and a whole lot of space cleared up in our lockers.
We also thought there was someone here that could look at our freezer. Maybe that was just during the boat show. We called the manufacturer and there wasn't anyone here specifically to look at it, and he emphasized the coolant charge rather than the thermostat this time. I looked at his videos online and decided to take it on.
There was also a delightful french bakery just on the other side of the parking lot from the marina. The only business that was closer was a liquor store, which are usually not far from most marinas. We rented another car and topped up with groceries, visited Bluewater Books for some more cruising guides, and hit a Costco. After a few days we were ready to get on the move again.
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