The next day George needed to participate in hours of Zoom meetings, so Chris was on her own at the helm. When we reached the destination George had planned for us, Elliot Key, George was still in meetings, so Chris anchored the boat just off the entrance to the harbor to wait until George was available to assist. In the meantime, she started researching the harbor at Elliot Key and concluded that it was only suitable for boats much smaller than Assisted Living. By the time George was off his Zoom calls, she had already plotted a course to Boca Chita, about five miles away. Wisely, George did not question the need for an alternative plan. (In George’s later telling of this, he likes to point out that while we were at anchor we saw a 40+’ boat departing Eliot Key harbor, but what he neglects to mention is that Chris had already chatted with that boat via the NEBO app and learned that they had only been allowed to dock in the harbor because in the extreme winds of the prior few days, the park ranger took pity on them and gave them special permission to use the ranger’s slip. Otherwise, they said there were no regular slips inside the harbor that would fit either their boat or ours.)

As soon as we arrived, we used the bikes to explore the trails around the island. The national park’s boat carrying tourists from Miami departed shortly after we returned from our bike excursion, and so that evening we had the island all to ourselves except for one other boat with the sweetest young family. Their three-year-old daughter reminded me of our daughter-in-law Katie, who grew up in Miami and had told us stories of spending nearly every weekend at Boca Chita when she was a little girl. As the sun was going down, George snapped beautiful photos of the young family silhouetted under the lighthouse, which we were later able to share with them by email. Shortly thereafter they relocated their boat near ours as they were being marauded by mosquitos at the other end of the harbor. We helped them tie up and since I had just baked some appetizers, I shared some with them.

On Wednesday, George unboxed his new blow-up paddle board and took it for an inaugural ride. He was pleased to report that it was surprisingly stable. That afternoon, several other cruising boats arrived in the harbor, and we met each of them as we helped secure their dock lines. That evening, we all gathered at one of the park picnic tables for happy hour and cruising stories (‘docktails/docktales’). Weather predictions for the next few days were for a northern cold front bringing crazy winds and unseasonably cold temperature, so it seemed like all the boats would be staying at least through Thursday night.

We woke the next morning to deteriorating weather as predicted, but curiously, despite the bad weather, on Thursday afternoon, a parade of boats started to arrive from Miami. Before long the bulkhead was completely full. Who looks at 30+ knots of wind, temperatures in the 40s and thinks, “Hey, let’s go camping this weekend!” ??? Apparently, a lot of folks from Miami. For the most part, they arrived in smaller boats, even some open consoles, and they spent hours hauling equipment and supplies from their boats to set up camp onshore. The most entertaining were two souped up boats traveling together, each with triple outboards on the back, that roared into the harbor and then – and I kid you not – spent the next thirty minutes gunning circles in the middle of the harbor while a woman on the bow of each boat tried with little success to work out the massive knots and tangles in the single dock line they each belatedly managed to unearth from the bowels of their boats. Once the line was as good as it was going to get (and note, I didn’t say it was untangled), the lead boat made several failed attempts to get its nose close to the bulkhead. By this time, Mike, the owner of the sailboat next to where the dynamic duo was trying to dock, was valiantly trying to assist. Every now and then a blind squirrel gets a nut, and along that vein, through blind luck the lead boat finally got enough of an untangled section of a dock line into Mike’s hands that he was able to manhandle them over to the wall and tied them off. It was a herculean effort since he was fighting big gusts of wind. It reminded me of what seasoned boaters say about docking: Either you are watching the show, or you ARE the show.

Later that evening, the momma from the sweet family knocked on our helm door and handed over a fabulous dinner she had made of Cuban beef, rice and fresh tomato salad. It was delicious, and such a nice surprise (and so much better than the leftovers we had planned). Chris had been baking a cobbler (which she rationalized by saying the oven would heat up the cabin amid the falling temperatures), so we shared some of that with the young family when we returned their dinner dishes. We also invited Mike (the docking hero) and his wife, Connie, to join us for some cobbler on Assisted Living.

Our time in Boca Chita had been wonderful, but we needed to get to Miami, where our son Taylor and his wife Katie were going to jump onboard for the weekend. We departed early Friday, February 6^th, and later that morning anchored in Dinner Key near Coconut Grove. As soon as we arrived, we launched the dinghy and George delivered Chris to the city dinghy dock where Taylor was waiting to lend Chris his car to go shopping for provisions. It was a great plan and would have been great if things had gone as planned. Unfortunately, it did not. Although Taylor lent Chris the car, he neglected to leave the key fob, so when she tried to park at the grocery store, she was unable to turn the car off. After returning to Taylor’s house to retrieve the key fob, she decided to go to the nearest grocery store, however overpriced, and buy as many groceries as would fit in the dinghy and get back to the boat as soon as possible.

The next morning, one of Katie’s best friends was arriving in Miami for the weekend, so we swapped Katie out for Tyler. Tyler is one of Taylor’s best friends and was his roommate for all four years of college. He just completed service in the navy and recently returned from a deployment to Japan. We were so happy to have Tyler onboard and to find out what he has been up to these past few years, and to hear about all the exciting opportunities he is considering for his future.

With Taylor at the helm, we departed Dinner Key on Saturday morning bound for Fort Lauderdale. The waterways of Miami and Fort Lauderdale were wild and wooly. AGLCA generally advises avoiding transiting Miami and Fort Lauderdale on a weekend, and for good reason, but with Taylor and Tyler onboard, it was less stressful than usual (translation: Chris became absorbed in a good book down below, while the “boys” handled everything from the flybridge helm). Taylor never gets ruffled by all the crazies on the water and he is an expert at maneuvering every boat we have ever owned.

The most “exciting” part of the trip was when we radioed for a scheduled bridge opening and the bridge tender insisted that we first come to the bridge and attempt to get under it. That’s all well and good until someone breaks off an expensive radar or other piece of gear. Having no other choice, we approached the bridge at a near standstill, then barely floated under the highest point of the bridge opening, which is only in the absolute center of the span. Taylor had to continuously work the throttles to make sure that we were perfectly lined up, which is quite hard to do at such a low speed. We appeared to have less than an inch to spare, which is ridiculous considering the damage to persons, boat and equipment that would have been wrought had we encountered the slighted wave or if Taylor been unable to pull off a perfect job of keeping the boat centered. If there is a next time, we will refuse to be bullied by a lazy bridge tender who has nothing to lose. In the video George put together of this leg of our journey, there is a clip of us going under another bridge with greater clearance than the bridge that refused to open. When you see how little space there is between the underside of the bridge and the equipment on the mast of our boat, you can appreciate how stressful it was to be coerced under a bridge with even less clearance.

We arrived at Fort Lauderdale Yacht Club by early afternoon. On a boat, it is always something, and today it was the hard plastic roller (anchor chain shiv) used when deploying our anchor and chain – it had cracked and several pieces had broken off. Tyler, Taylor and George did gymnastics on the front of the boat getting the broken roller disengaged from the anchor pulpit, but despite their best efforts the part could not be completely removed from its holder. We would have access to Taylor’s car the next day (arriving from Miami), so we put the repair project on hold with the plan to buy a replacement roller on Sunday.

With no more work to be done, Taylor and Tyler went exploring using the dinghy, and George and I stayed onboard for George to attend to some business for a public board on which he remains active. Afterwards, the boys joined us for dinner at the yacht club, and then Tyler took an Uber back to his Airbnb in Fort Lauderdale (he is in Fort Lauderdale for several months completing additional training that will qualify him to be a chief engineer on large ships). Tyler later reported that his Uber driver started chuckling as they approached the absolute dump of a place Tyler had rented, since it was such a stark contrast to the elegance of the yacht club where the Uber had picked him up. We are indeed fortunate that our association with FCYC allows us to stay at such beautiful clubs.

The next morning, George, Taylor and I motored Assisted Living the short distance to the Coral Ridge Yacht Club, another FCYC club in Fort Lauderdale. Taylor backed Assisted Living into a very tight slip, with about 6” to spare on either side. There we met Katie and her mother, who had driven up from Miami (with a vice so the boys could complete the shiv removal process). We joined Katie’s uncle and his husband for brunch at a restaurant overlooking the beach (thankful for the outdoor heaters), then went in search of the replacement roller for our anchor system. We found what we needed at West Marine, then returned to the boat so Taylor could help George get it installed. Like any worthwhile boat repair, it could not be completed without at least one more trip to the store, this time to get additional tools. After the necessary new tools were brought back to the boat, it was getting late, so we said goodbye to our Miami family.

After a quiet night, we woke refreshed to tackle the replacement of the anchor roller. George and Chris did bow front gymnastics to successfully install the replacement anchor roller, losing only one small flat washer in the process (a magnificent feat given that we were both hanging suspended over the water from the bow pulpit screwing parts in upside down and backwards with no visual on the nuts, washers and screws). It certainly made me appreciate having Taylor and Tyler onboard to help with the front end of this project. After three loads of laundry, we departed Fort Lauderdale late the morning of February 9^th, and headed north on the ICW bound for Delray Beach.

George put together a nice video showing highlights of our journey from the Keys that o Biscayne Bay, our stay at Boca Chita, and the busy trip through the ICW from Miami to Fort Lauderdale.