Since we arrived on Lake Sylvia last Wednesday, it’s been very quiet. Each afternoon, four or five boats arrive, probably from the ICW, to spend the night. A trawler was here with us until yesterday and then left and another catamaran has been here a few days also. We think most people don’t realize they can stay more than a day or two. However, this is the only place to anchor in the Ft. Lauderdale area and is close to both the ICW and the ocean. We have used the marina dinghy dock once and the public ramp the other days. This morning, we went to the public ramp to walk Daisy. While we think we could tie up the dinghy and leave it, as it is a public area, we haven’t done that. Mark drops me off with Daisy and I walk her while he stays with the dinghy.
This morning we also went a little bit further down that channel to the Oyster Bar. For $10 you can leave the dinghy there all day and if you eat at the restaurant the dinghy money goes toward your bill. A Publix grocery store and a Starbucks are a short distance from there, so when we need groceries we’ll probably use that dock. Tomorrow, we’ll go to the marina dock again. We’ll do some laundry, take long showers, ride our bikes for some exercise and walk on the beach. The weather is perfect - low 80’s with low humidity and the wind has finally dropped. We can open windows in the salon (just behind Mark’s head in the photo below) and the large sliding window above the sink in the galley as well as the sliding door to the cockpit to get a pleasant breeze through the salon. The temperature is going down into the high 50’s at night creating comfortable sleeping conditions, with the hatch open above the bed. We run the genset for an hour at night to recharge the house batteries (hot water, outlets, etc). If we had our solar panels (next purchase) we wouldn’t need to do this as often. While the genset is on, we can use more power, so I try to use the convection oven to bake breakfast bread, use the breadmaker, wash clothes, etc.
Today we had our first experience with the “weekend sailors” on this small lake. There were more than 20 boats here at a time. Seven boats were tied together and at one point it looked like the occupants were having a meeting. Almost all of them were standing on one of the boats and two men were on another, ringing bells and talking. Then we heard the words “Survivor” and realized they were christening the small sailboat. In
our christening ceremony, which was rather short, drinks were taken a few times. This one lasted much longer, and probably involved a lot more drinking.
We spent most of the afternoon relaxing, watching the boats, and reading. Daisy got to see a few dogs coming by on their boats. Daisy seems to be almost the only dog we’ve seen who doesn’t bark at the other dogs. She sees them, gets excited, but doesn’t respond to their barks with more than a low “ruff.” She’ll never be a good watch dog, but she is a great boat dog.
As the day wore on and the sun set, the weekend boaters headed home. We’re back to a handful of boats who are probably just here for the night or weekend. There was only one boat all day that sped around with a water skier. The rest were relatively quiet visitors, probably just enjoying the beautiful weather.
We took Daisy ashore for one more walk this evening. She is back to her “two a day” walks as opposed to the three walks she gets when we are at a dock. However, she loves the dinghy and it almost makes up for the wait.
We went to the marina and walked down the beachwalk. Being Saturday night, the bars were full and each one seemed to have a band, i.e. the “Battle of the Bands” was going on. However, farther down A1A, there are no bars, just huge hotels and high rise condos. Starbucks at the Westin was still open, so we had a late night drink and headed back to the boat.
