HOLY CRAP! Our last post was November when I wrote about part one of the crossing! We really need to do a better job of getting these posts out.

I hope everyone had a Happy Holidays. Now that we’re back we’ll pick up where we left off.

In our last episode we left Fort Lauderdale, made it to Miami and dropped the hook for the night while we wait for the fuel dock at the Miami Beach Marina to open. If you are just joining us, you may want to go back and read that post.

Waking up at anchor in Marine Stadium was great. It was a much better experience this time sans mosquitopocalipse. We were eager to get going but still decided to take a little dip and cool off and for me to check the hulls. I wanted to get under and see how things looked after spending a little over two months in the marina. Fortunately things weren’t bad at all. A little muck but no significant growth. Lauderdale Marine Center is up the New River in Fort Lauderdale, it is in brackish water which means all the little critters that like to latch on to your hull, saildrives, and props weren’t there in abundance. We gave Giro’s waterline a quick scrub and I made sure that all of the through-hulls were clean and clear.

Of course I had to get shots of my crew with Miami in the background so that their wives would know that they were still ok, having a good time on the crossing and that I had not kidnapped them and headed to Cuba.

Shortly after coming out of the water I get a ding on my phone. It was our friend Randy who spent the week with us when we were down here last time. You remember, the super patient captain who helped us move in the middle of the night to get away from mosquitos. Twice. In his text message he asked if we were in Marine Stadium. My immediate thought was hmm…yeah, I wonder if he’s here somewhere? Sure enough, he had been hired to do a check ride on a gorgeous mono-hull that just happened to be the one that we anchored next to last night. Small world!

After getting everything in order and hoisting the anchor we made a beeline for the Miami Beach Marina fuel dock. I’ll just say that filling 18 20-liter diesel jerry jugs is a pain. Call it a necessary evil though as I wasn’t about to make this crossing without a full load of fuel. It felt like lashing these jugs to the lifelines took just as long as filling them. Regardless, we had fuel, and we were on our way. Bill had started a batch of oatmeal for breakfast and we were officially off. Next stop….Texas!

We head out Government cut, turn S/SW and breathe a sigh of relief that we are now officially on our way. I set our awesome new auto-pilot “Otto” while we admire the sunshine and the view of Virginia Key and Key Biscayne from the Atlantic side. Just before we make it parallel with Cape Florida we get some visitors. I had gone down to the head and was on my way back up on deck when I hear “boat incoming”. My immediate thought was, “Ah hah, looks like we’re going to get our Coast Guard visit.” But nope, it was the Miami Dade Sherrif’s Department in a hot-rod chase boat. They came along side and were just checking. My guess is that they saw the fuel jugs, saw us headed south and figured we were worth checking out. They asked us where we were headed, saw the name and hailing port on the stern, and all that combined with my Texas accent decided we were harmless, wished us a safe trip on our crossing with fair weather and were off. Nice guys, glad that they are out there, and glad that they check.

We continued on our course and for most of the rest of the day the weather was nice to us. Most of the time we spend dodging crab pots that were laid out across our path. Fisherman aren’t supposed to lay them in the channels but that doesn’t stop them from laying them right up to the channel. Problem is, we weren’t in the official channel so we had to dodge the hundreds of them. It wasn’t until that evening when it got nasty. We could see the squalls coming in as the sun set and I could feel the wind clock around from our port beam to our stern. That’s when I knew it was going to get uncomfortable. A northerly wind with the southerly Florida current meant that we were going to have counter-current swells. Ugh. We bashed south through the short period waves until the weather finally cleared somewhere around Matacumbe Key. Then it was still and stagnant into the Hawk channel.

We made our way W/NW towards the Channel 5 bridge and the air was so still and thick when we were going under the bridge it was eerie. Actually going under the bridge was a bit of a high pucker-factor moment as from the deck, your perspective of how high your mast is versus how low a bridge might be is a bit skewed. It looked like we had inches, although according to my calculations we had plenty of room. Being completely dark and 2:30 a.m. didn’t help the visual either. What’s interesting is when you cross under the Channel 5 bridge you are actually going south to north (if you’re coming from the Atlantic side) and we could see the light pollution from Miami & Homestead directly ahead of us. (See the image below.)

Now we had to navigate the shallows and get out into Flordia Bay. Just as we got a bit NE of Tripod bank another round of squalls came through and it made me a bit nervous as we were in 6-7 feet of water with 3+ foot swells and I had images of us bouncing off the bottom running through my head. We did ok though with only one little loop when things got bad. It wasn’t long and things cleared up and we were on our way again. Well…until about 7:30 am when I come on deck after a nap and see something in the water behind us. Full stop and I’m in the water to remove a crab pot that can snagged on our stb. sail drive. Ugh. Thankfully, no damage done other than the rubber boot for the sail drive coming dislodged a bit. I’ll add that to the list for the next haul-out. To add insult to injury the pot was empty. So much for having crab for breakfast! Back on our way….again. We had a great breakfast and as we chatted about the deep water coming up we all realized that no one had gotten sick during the storms and rough weather yesterday evening and last night. Sweet! We were hopeful that it wouldn’t return for anyone the rest of the trip. I know Bill was especially hopeful! The sunrise behind us was not only beautiful but it was indicative that we were now headed west towards home, officially about to cross the Gulf of Mexico. (Note the crab pots in the image below!)

Today was all about recovering from the weather yesterday and enjoying the great weather ahead of us. We still had a way to go before we were officially in the Gulf of Mexico which would be some time this evening. As we entered the Gulf we were greeted by an equally amazing sunset.

Next up, in Part 3, we catch fish, have a visitor (who decides to stay a while), dodge oil rigs, and make landfall in Texas!