Fort Lauderdale Boat Show

Phillip is at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show exhibiting his company, American-Marine Canvas & Upholstery (www.american-marine.com) - and a couple of people have stopped by to see him and commented that they really liked my blog - so to those people, thank you THANK YOU for your kind words! I had originally written the sailing blog just to keep my family updated so they'd know where we were - and I am so surprised and delighted that other people, friends and strangers, have read it and enjoyed it. Someone said to Phillip when he said he had been sailing in the Caribbean something like "Gosh - your wife isn't the one who ate 6 months of chocolate in a week, is she?" Yes. That was me, and while I'm not proud of it, I'd do it again :-)
This man had read about that in my article in Latitudes & Attitudes!

Since we've been on land for the past couple of years, I haven't really updated the blog but have been making the odd contribution to Tripadvisor.com with regard to hotels and restaurants, so if you're interested in where we eat and where we've been, read on....

http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-reviews/chewedpup

my article in LATITUDES & ATTITUDES

"Latitudes & Attitudes", one of the largest sailing and cruising magazines, published my first article:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/4d000327#/4d000327/65

I have published other articles in Lats and Atts, as well as Blue Water Sailing - but don't think you can read those online.

Oasis of the Seas - December 19, 2009

Phillip and I spent a day on Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world. I was somewhat curious about all the hype, but skeptical too. I've seen just about all their ships (they're all lovely) but I wondered just how different she could be, and why the big fuss. Let me tell you, all the incredible things you have heard - they're all true. She's amazing! (**just FYI, they don't offer the "blimp/aerostat" option as it broke free during sea trials and they figured it probably wasn't the best idea after all.)



** A $1 million "experiment, the blimp was filled with helium and for a charge, passengers could be lifted up in the air and view the scenery for miles around. During sea trials, Richard Fain, the Chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean, was lifted up in the aerostat to try it out, and seemed to like it very much. Later on that day, the aerostat was sent up again for further trials, with nobody in it. Something went wrong and at first they were just unable to bring the aerostat back to the ship - but then something went seriously wrong and the aerostat broke free and drifted away across the open skies. The Finnish coastguard had to get involved, and followed the aerostat which finally sank downwards (running out of helium I suppose?). Nobody was hurt, but the aerostat experiment was cancelled.)


The charming Schooner bar - very classy.



Dining room - complete with magnificent oversized chandeliers and artworks.







A new addition - one of my favorites! These are installed everywhere on the ship.


One of the amazing pieces of art, at the entrance to the casino.




Wonderful skylights everywhere.




A view down from the pool deck to "Central Park", one of the seven "neighbourhoods" on the ship.


Sun deck area



There is $33 MILLION worth of artwork on the ship. Some pieces are small and subtle, some are huge and overwhelming and literally breathtaking.

One of the things that most impressed us on the ship were these - "Way Finders" - located all over the ship - touch screens similar to the "iPhone" or "Hero" phone - incredibly simple and logical to use - showed you what's going on on the ship at any time, all the venues, shops, activities, locations, and directions, not to mention showing you all the restaurants and their occupancies - so you could decide whether or not it was worth going somewhere. Kind of disappointing to trudge all the way to one end of the ship to a restaurant only to find out it's full - so this is a real GENIUS move!




In the interior of the ship, instead of just having retail space, the cruise ship has opened it up, lined it with cabins with balconies, and created Central Park - open air, with trees, shrubs, flowers, the sounds of birds - it is just wonderful.









Southeast 17th Street bridge.



The zipliner!!!!! You can "fly" across the top of the ship!






A view down to the Aqua Theater with their HUGE screens, the pool (their shows are similar to Cirque du Soleil's "O" which is water based and involves swimming, diving and underwater choreography). Cabins (staterooms) with balconies provide occupants with some great views.






A view down to Central Park.

how to treat your lady right

Ant and me at the pumpkin patch.

Ant treating Mel to a night out via motorbike (below).

Fort Lauderdale: Sadness as this journey draws to a close

Yesterday morning we left Fort Pierce (where we'd anchored the night before) and let me tell you the INLET there was horrendous. I have never been in such rough waters. For half an hour, Delphinus's bow rose into the air about 20 feet and then dropped (crashed is a better word: it wasn't any kind of gentle descent down the crest of a wave, or even a rough descent as such - it was simply dropping, falling, crashing down so we were almost weightless for a nano-second or two) 20 feet, submerging the bowsprit into the water before rearing out of the water again another 20 feet. The waves were almost on top of each other - even Phillip said it was rough, and he NEVER agrees with me about this sort of thing. It lasted about 40 minutes until we were out of the channel - I hung on for dear life, I couldn't let go of the rails for even a second, or else I'd have been tossed around the cockpit like, well, like an idiot on a boat in very rough seas. Worst seas I've ever been in for sure.


We arrived in Fort Lauderdale and anchored in Lake Sylvia (by Port Everglades) at 4 pm this afternoon, exactly four weeks after leaving Annapolis. It was the most wonderful sailing day today - the best I've ever experienced - light winds, gentle seas, the sun shining, a wonderful breeze - just tinged with the slightest melancholy because it means our trip has drawn to a close. This trip, anyway. It was bitter sweet, seeing the familiar coastline, our condo, the restaurant where we met (Sea Watch), our friend Ree's condo, Fort Lauderdale Beach etc. then turning into Port Everglades and seeing the intracoastal waterway, the New River, all our old "stomping grounds", and then finally anchoring in Lake Sylvia. Who knows whether we'll stay in Florida for a while or if we'll be setting sail to foreign lands again, only time will tell.

To be continued......

Sunday 11th October, arrived Fort Pierce

We motored down Mosquito Lagoon - what wonderful scenery. We put the sail up a couple of times, but mostly the wind was from the south so it didn't help us at all.



It was a huge, beautiful stretch of open water, very deceiving though because the only navigable areas for us (with a keel of 6.5 feet) are about the size of a normal road (single lane either side). You see miles and miles of open water, yet if you deviate off the plotted chart area even a few feet, you're in very shallow water.






We saw plenty of these magnificent, sort of creepy looking trees along the narrower parts of the ICW, south of Georgia.


Almost home - just two more days and we'll be in Fort Lauderdale.

Stopped in Titusville on the way down - the kind people at the Municipal Dock let us tie Delphinus up there while we went to a great local supermarket (Save a Lot) for provisions - most places charge you for dockage or else insist you buy things from them - they did neither, just offered their kindness to us. As a result, we bought beer, ice-cream, diesel and water from them and thanked them profusely.

We're anchored tonight in Fort Pierce - nice to have some internet for a change - and see the water changing color to blue (from dark green/black). Plenty of dolphins around too! Tomorrow we'll probably do a day-sail on the outside, mainly so Phillip can catch some mahi-mahi. West Palm Beach tomorrow, then Fort Lauderdale Tuesday.

After St. Augustine....

We've motored and anchored here and there, and are now in Smyrna Beach overnight where we can fortunately get some good wi-fi! Tiny anchorage - but as we pulled in, a guy in a tiny little boat with a fishing rod was screaming (with delight) - we turned to see what the fuss was about - he had hooked a HUGE fish and it was towing him along. It was ENORMOUS - probably about 5 feet long. We didn't see how it ended but as always, I hoped it got away. Poor fish. As I tell Phillip, if he ever catches a fish (or a crab or lobster) and puts it in a pail of water on the boat, keeping it alive - I will name that creature, make friends with it and put it back in the water. He knows how I feel about live creatures..... Even in the Caribbean, when we got those lobsters, I had to get Paul to dispatch them - couldn't have them on our boat or else I'd have put them back in the water. When he catches a fish, I take a photo of it with my eyes shut (so usually only get a blurred shot of the fish, or only its tail or head), then I disappear below and let P take care of everything - but I also ask him every time to say something nice about the fish, once it has been dispatched (he sprays alcohol into its gills and the fish just goes to sleep peacefully - none of this awful bashing and beating that a lot of fishermen do, ugh, so cruel) - so he says a few words about each fish i.e. you were a good fish, a kind fish, with lots of friends, and you will be missed. Something like that.

Don't get me wrong, I can eat the fish, but only when it has been wrapped in plastic and no longer resembles anything that's alive. I can't eat anything with a face. But yes, I can fool myself into eating something that came from the supermarket in a plastic-wrapped carton - the two are not related. And I ALWAYS hate seeing lobsters kept in tanks in supermarkets - if I could, I would grab them all and set them free.

Speaking of which, we ate our last two lobster tails last night (the ones we got in Petit St. Vincent in the Grenadines) with some tinned corn and engine-baked potato and butter sauce of course. I've been pleading with P to please make use of the heat the engine gives out - motoring all day long, that engine really gets up to cooking temperatures, so I finally persuaded him to put our one potato that we had left in the engine and let it bake. We wrapped it up in tin foil of course, wedged it in tightly, and let her sit for a couple of hours while we motored, and guess what - the PERFECT baked potato! Yum! Now we're wondering how we can rig up some baking trays down there - we can bake and cook all day long without using our propane.

Here are some pics of the foggy mornings we've been seeing. This morning we could hardly see the bridge! We knew it was there, but where?






It's very very hot and humid - at night there isn't a puff of air, and if anyone's been to Florida in mid summer and spent some time without air conditioning, they'll appreciate how hot and sticky you can get. Hottest we've had on this trip - well into the hundreds. Oh well.

Tuesday 6th - arriving St. Augustine and leaving on the 7th

We arrived in St. Augustine about 3 pm, shortly before a massive thunderstorm - dolphins were abundant, and once we'd anchored, just north of Bridge of Lions, I watched them play, jumping out of the water, rolling over, really having a whale of a time (no pun intended). Phillip got to work on the dingy engine, but still no luck. It's such a simple engine - fuel, compression and spark are the three things that make a dingy work, and all three were peachy - so it was obviously something more serious. Not having a dingy is pretty serious as you can't go ashore anywhere without paying to dock in a marina. The following morning we went through Bridge of Lions, and anchored just south of the bridge where P found an engine repair guy who hauled the motor away (we had to dock at the Municipal Downtown Marina and Fuel Dock to fill up with diesel and water) and $180 later, returned the sad verdict that the powerhead had cracked, it would cost almost $1000 plus labour for a new one (not worth it - you can get a new one for that price), so we docked at the Marina again (they were very kind to let us do this), picked up the dead engine and decided to leave St. Augustine. There really was no point in staying - we couldn't go ashore, although it looked like one of the loveliest towns on the trip, and no point in getting a new motor/engine there because they are few and far between and very expensive.

So we left, escorted away by dolphins again. Funny that - we've seen tons more dolphins on the ICW than we did in the Caribbean! AND we also saw an alligator - probably about 5 foot long, we motored right past him, he didn't try to swim away or anything - just lay there looking at us - like he was waiting to cross the road and was pausing to let the traffic go by - and once we'd gone by him, he swam to the other side of the river. Amazing!