Tuesday 24 Dec, Hollywood FL day 1: Sailing in the morning and Christmas Eve in Fort Lauderdale.
05:15 alarm was not welcome! A 5 minute snooze and we are out of bed ready to go, even though it’s still very much dark outside. Anchor is up by 5:30 and we are out in the sea before 6am. Farewell West Palm!
The wind isn’t as strong as we’d hoped. Just 7kts. We have to do at least 7kts speed to keep to our schedule of picking up the hire car before 3pm when they close today, being Christmas Eve. So we motor and make water as we go.
But shortly after sunrise the offshore wind picks up and we are soon having a wonderful beam reach sail just half a mile off the beach, averaging 8-9kts. Clear skies too. It’s been a week now since we’ve had that. Florida weather has returned at last.
The offshore breeze is particularly gusty between the various tower blocks down the coast. Some gusts are up to 25kts so we have to reduce sail before we tip everything out of the cupboards below!
There are lots of fishing boats out and it’s pretty cool to go flying passed them, some pretty close, and watch their faces. Oh, what a lovely sail.
By 11am we are already at the entrance to Port Everglades. With sails furled we barely make 5 kts against the 20kts wind and 2kt ebb tide as we head into the channel. And just as we get in and turn left towards Hollywood we are greeted by a customs boat. They speed up to us and give us a good grilling. They asked every question imaginable clearly trying to catch us out. Like: “where is the boat registered?” “Gibraltar” we say. “Yes, but which Gibraltar, there are many”. “Well, as far as I know there is only one Gibraltar that you can register a boat in”! We respond. “Correct answer” they say. Finally they seem to be happy with our answers and let us go. But it was not a pleasant experience, they were way more aggressive than they needed to be, in our opinion.
So on we go, south along the narrow inland waterway. We time the 3 bascule bridges to perfection and we arrive to South Lake at midday, about 1 hour ahead of our estimate. And a good job too because it takes us a while to anchor. This South Lake is over 11m deep in places – incredible given most of the inland water ways are barely 4m deep. In fact, you have to go about a mile offshore to get even 10m depth! We wonder why this lake is dredged so deep? Second attempt we get the anchor in.
With the wind, this small lake is pretty choppy, not helped by big power boats which pass the lake doing 25kts in the channel, sending huge wash slapping under our transom. It’s a tricky exercise getting the outboard down and into the dinghy, it’s so choppy. Plus the wind is really howling now, so we are a bit reluctant to leave the boat so soon after anchoring. But leave it we have to, if we are to get the hire car.
We take a very wet dinghy ride to the North Lake where there is a public dinghy dock and the only place to get ashore. As we turn the corner, we are horrified to see the dinghy dock is roped off due to the whole area being reworked. What terrible luck. We see other yachts have instead just tied their dinghies to the rocks, but we are not doing that. Not with our new dinghy.
So we come back around to our lake and motor around its shore. Should we moor on a private dock, knock on their door and plead to be allowed to leave the dinghy there? Not a good idea. Trespassing in US can get you shot! Yet if we can’t land the dinghy we will be marooned on the boat over Christmas – not a good prospect.
Eventually, we find a vacant lot with a nasty looking concrete wall covered in sharp shells. It looks impossible to tie up to but we investigate and with some well-placed fenders we reluctantly manage to leave the dinghy. Now we pray Uber will operate here. And sure enough, within 5 minutes we are picked up and on the way to Enterprise rentals where we manage to get the car just 20 minutes before they close. Thank goddess, we made it by the skin of our teeth!
Our first stop with the car is to park and take a walk along the promenade of Hollywood beach. It’s very busy and the beach is quite crowded this Christmas Eve afternoon. At first glance it looks very nice, but we soon come to realize it’s all a bit run down and low budget. Like a Spanish beach resort that has seen better days.
So after an ice cream we are back in the car heading to our favorite place, Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. We want to find somewhere nice for Christmas lunch tomorrow. A quick google for recommendations lands us in the Riverside Hotel. With all our fingers crossed we hear they still have a few available places for the Christmas buffet. Phew! That concludes the 2nd objective of the day. The 1st being to pick up the hire car on time.
Now it’s time to finally relax in a Mexican restaurant on Las Olas Boulevard. What a days it’s been. One big rush since 5am. Retirement cruising is not meant to be stressful!
We happily find the dinghy where we left it and we are back on CB for an early night. Well deserved.