Start: Lauderdale Marine Center 26:05.800 N, 080:09.850 W

Finish: Lake Sylvia 26.06.230 N, 80:06.350 W

1122 Underway

1225 Anchor down at Lake Sylvia

Total Time:  1 hour 3 minutes

Total Distance:  4.23 nm

Although we could have left LMC yesterday, we opted to wait a day to finish some last minute chores that required shore power and a bike ride.  OK, we really just wanted one more day of long showers, TV, microwave meals, and no dinghy rides ashore for Daisy.  Plus, it was windy and squally yesterday.  We set off this morning with our brand new propulsion system, a sparkling clean bottom, and a lower mast.  We got to our first bascule bridge, the Davie Blvd Bridge, called the tender on the VHF radio and got no answer.  This is quite common as he seems to leave his post frequently.  After about ten minutes of holding our position in the narrow river with a stiff wind pushing us off to the side, he returned and we went through.  Two bridges later we scraped along the wooden wall. It is the Andrew Ave. bridge and rather than opening in the middle, it opens on the side and the bridge is at an angle when it is fully open.  Sailboats have to stay to the open side to avoid hitting the raised bridge.  While doing that, a speedboat decided to overtake us at full throttle as we went under the bridge.  His wake pushed us up against the side and our rub rail connected with the wall for a few long seconds.  The Sunday cruisers, on their way to a nearby sandbar (we saw them later) simply waved and smiled.  One of many rude boaters in the Ft. Lauderdale area.

Lake Sylvia is a very small and surrounded by beautiful homes. It is usually a quiet anchorage....except on weekends.  For some odd reason, although this is a “no wake zone” speedboats are allowed to circle the lake with pulling water skiers or innertubes.  Of course, this causes every boat at anchor to rock and roll.  Occasionally a local boater comes in playing loud music, rarely if ever to our liking. Today we even had a guy on a homemade jetski contraption with a backpack that made him airborne.   However, come tomorrow it will be quiet and calm again.

A few minutes after we arrived and got settled, Lynn and Shelley came over in their dinghy with Bloody Marys for us.  They have just returned from the Exumas and we were anxious to hear their stories.  We plan to travel with them back to their home marina in Marco Island. They have made this journey quite a few times and we are hoping to learn from their experiences.  The wind direction is not conducive to leaving here until Thursday, when we will sail to Rodriguez Key, near Key Largo.  The next day we’ll continue south to Marathon.  We will have to wait a few days to a week for the winds to clock around.  Then, we’ll go under our first 65 ft. bridge, holding our breath I’m sure.  Going under bridges is very deceiving, as no matter what your clearance, it always looks like your mast is going to hit it.  Our mast is 63 feet now with a flexible antenna on top, so we should glide right under.  Then, it’s north to the Shark River to anchor overnight.  This is in the Everglades on the Gulf of Mexico. We won’t be able to take Daisy ashore and even if we could, we wouldn’t want to.  Not because of the “shark” possibility, but rather there are massive amounts of mosquitoes, no-see-ums, and even horseflies.  We’ll drop anchor and run inside, hoping that the bugs don’t follow us.  The next day we’ll sail to Marco Island.  We plan to stay anchored there for a few days to explore the area, as we only briefly stopped there once.  From there, our plans are not made, but we hope to return to the Keys and meander from anchorage to anchorage, snorkeling and kayaking whenever possible until the end of May.

We had some excitement aboard today.  Daisy had a bit of diarrhea this morning before we left the marina.  When we were enjoying our Bloody Marys with Lynn and Shelley, Daisy was quite hyper and we finally figured out she wanted/needed to go ashore in the dinghy.  Hoping this would be a teachable moment, we watched her run up to the trampolines a few times, where she has “gone” once before but continues to avoid going on long trips.  It was obvious she knew it was the place to “go” but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.  She squatted a couple of times but quickly straightened up and ran back to us in the cockpit.  We assured her it was OK to go and that she was a “good dog.”  When she saw we weren’t going to take her ashore, she ran up again and then......yes!!!!  Much praise and treats from all of us.  Hopefully she now understands it’s OK to go there and she has become a real Boat Dog.