We continued down the ditch to Ft. Lauderdale, with a record 19 bridges that we needed to open. Some open on demand (more or less), but others are on a fixed schedule that you either make, or you don't. Most open on the half (top of the hour and half past), some on the quarter (quarter after and quarter til) and even one on the 20 (20 after, 20 til, and top of the hour). They're spaced seemingly randomly, so this becomes a task to avoid missing a bridge by a minute and wasting a half hour for the next opening. We alternated between chugging along barely fast enough to maintain steerage and fast as she would go.
We made the bridge schedule for all but a couple, but it made for a 10 hour day where we only went about 40 miles. Along the way we could sense that we were being watched.
Once again being tracked by feral iguanas. They were on the bridges, everywhere.
We finally recognized the Biltmore from the water. Just upriver was an example of what passes for a fixer upper in Boca Raton. Someone woke up and just hated everything.
We got to the Los Olas marina and were assigned a slip to adjacent to the one we had last year. Heather did great getting us in a tight approach right next to the bridge, and a kind soul helped us with the lines to get us secured in there. When we got here last year the three foot tides just seemed crazy. After months in Brunswick with 9 foot tides it seems like no big deal.
We went to dinner at a place we had been going to for a few years called Kelly's Landing, specializing in northeast style seafood. We had some good calamari, some great clam chowder, and some of the best onion rings ever. I was full after the appetizers.
We're here! Now all we need to do is work down our punch list and get a weather window. We are running out of days before Heather needs to go back to AZ for a week for her medical appointments.
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