Wow, has it been almost a year since we sailed from Puerto Morelos, Mexico, to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida?
That road trip we'd taken through the Yucatan Peninsula was one of our best road trips ever, anywhere. With that now behind us, on May 6, 2011, we checked out of Mexico* and started across the Yucatan Channel, making for the east coast of Florida.
* We had a few hours' delay, waiting for (1) the officials to show up at Marina El Cid with our exit papers; and (2) the fuel truck to show up with some diesel. But in the end, we got out before we'd lost very much time.
The forecast called for light air, which was a good thing because even on a calm day the Yucatan Channel is lumpy. And by "lumpy" I mean steep, pyramid-shaped waves close together coming from three directions. This is all the result of several large ocean currents converging on the Yucatan Peninsula's eastern shore. You have strong currents flowing from southeast to north past the Yucatan Peninsula that eventually turn east and become the Gulf Stream; there are strong opposing currents flowing from east to west along both sides of Cuba; and then you have the currents gyrating around the Gulf of Mexico. The result was a very uncomfortable washing-machine for our first 24 hours at sea.
Sea conditions (and our seasickness) eventually improved. Except for two occasions when the wind increased to all of 17 knots (on the nose with choppy seas, of course), our winds remained below 15 knots from the E and NE (again: right on the nose), and often dropped below 10 knots. We encountered currents along the north side of Cuba that forced us to aim ESE in order to slowly crab our way NE until we could round the southern end of Florida and pick up the Gulf Stream. Why yes, we motored. Almost the whole bloomin' way: 4 days, 4 nights and 541 miles.
By Day 3 we were definitely in the Gulf Stream and were turning northward up Florida's east coast. The wind briefly came from the west, and with it we began to smell something burning. We immediately checked our engine – but happily nothing was wrong. We eventually figured out that the burning smell was…Florida. Seems May had brought some drought and wildfires to the area. It felt strange. And like smoking a pack of cigarettes.
Day 4: the VHF was lively with Florida boaters demonstrating the most ignorant, rude behavior GB and I have ever heard over the airwaves. Screaming, cursing, and more "radio checks" in one day than I've heard in my life. As we closed with shore and encountered more vessel traffic, we experienced first hand the most ignorant, rude and dangerous boating behavior we have ever seen. And we've sailed 18,000 miles in 9 different countries. And today was just a Tuesday.
Behavior like this is why Florida has its own FARK tag.
Our entry to Ft. Lauderdale's inlet was pretty routine, although we had to defer to commercial boat traffic which delayed us getting through a bascule bridge, thus making us hold station for a half hour until the next available opening – but we were used to that from having dealt with Seattle's bridges back in the day. Still, we were tired from the days at sea and Florida was beginning to stress us out.
We had a true National Geographic moment when we entered the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) for the first time. The shallow water, narrow ICW channel and heavy boat traffic unnerved us. The Florida boaters' disregard for safety was upsetting. With trepidation we made our way the short distance north from Ft. Lauderdale's inlet and under another bascule brige (which with our mast height requires hailing the bridge tender to request an opening) to arrive our chosen destination, Las Olas municipal marina. Sadly, an oversized yacht blocked the fairway leading to our assigned slip so we had to go back under the bascule bridge (calling and waiting for another opening) to backtrack a few dozen yards to Las Olas's mooring field. We were both really overstimulated at this point, so while we waited for the bridge to open one last time we did what any old married couple does in a situation like that: we yelled at each other.
We soon got under the bridge, snagged a mooring buoy, shut off the engine and sorted ourselves out. It was May 10, 2011, 12:40 p.m. GB made a quick lunch and we sat in the cockpit looking around and blinking in wonder.
It was 4-1/2 years since The Fox had been in US waters.
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