A mailmanatee at a waterfront home along the New River
A month had flown by since we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale. With our new Bimini top completed and everything else on board tikkity boo, we headed down the New River from “Marina Miguel” to the Atlantic Ocean.
Moonshadow tied up at “Marina Miguel” in Ft. Lauderdale
“Marina Miguel” is behind the waterfront home of sailing friends Mike and Sue, just a short ways upstream from downtown Fort Lauderdale. Thanks to Sue, Moonshadow was well looked after while we were at home for the summer.
We were looking to get out of the hurricane belt for what NOAA predicts will be an active hurricane season, and plan to head up the East Coast of the States for some easy cruising along the Intracoastal Waterway. The most challenging part of the first leg was to get from the New River to the Atlantic Ocean.
This spit of land known as “Little Florida” is the back yard to a lovely waterfront home and creates a hairpin turn in the New River.
One draw bridge behind us, four to go
Two more before downtown Ft. Lauderdale
The Downtowner Saloon is a great little happy hour joint
A good place to stop during rush hours when the bridges are kept closed
Things can get a bit cozy in the downtown area
And we’re a lot smaller than some of the traffic we’ve seen on the River
Like the mighty Jungle Queen which does numerous daily tourist cruises on the River
Rush hour traffic in downtown Fort Lauderdale
On either side of town, there are lots of lovely waterfront homes
Fort Lauderdale is called the Venice of the US. Not a lot of palm trees in Venice.
We arrived at the 17th Street Bridge just minutes before its hourly opening
Past the 17th Street bridge we hoisted the main (and broke the main halyard) and had a lovely 45 mile day sail up to Palm Beach in pleasant trade wind conditions. The Gulf Stream gave us a positve current of about two knots so we averaged nearly ten knots while we were out in the Atlantic. We even caught a small bluefin tuna which we returned to the Sea Gods in hopes of a larger offering. It was good to be sailing again!
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