Fort Lauderdale to Lake Park Harbor (8 Dec – 9 Dec)

Our shakedown cruise was due to end at Lake Park Harbor, a town just outside West Palm Beach. When we reached Lauderdale, we realized we were only about 50 miles away from our destination. Now, we knew if we went inside, it would probably take us 8-10 hours—because of all the “Idle Speed Zones,” and the bridges. If we went outside, we figured it would take us about 5 hours or so – so we decided to go outside again.

On the way out of the inlet, we met a HUGE freighter headed towards the commercial docks. You should have been with us. There we were, moving along fat, dumb and happy – slowly, to be sure – but not expecting to see anything untoward. When we turned the last corner before the inlet, we saw it. It was huge. It was still a half-mile or so away, even so, it was really big. Since I didn’t exactly know which way it was going, I slowed to a crawl. It looked like he was turning directly away from us (which was good), but, just to be sure, I decided to do a lazy 360 degree, with both eyes on the ship to make sure we knew where he was going.

After leaving the behemoth behind, we headed, once more, into the Atlantic. Again, it was much more … er… interesting than we had wanted it to be. The seas were 4-6 feet and it was not particularly comfortable. Again, we went out to where the big fishing boats were to see if the seas calmed down and we went in closer to shore where the little fishing boats were. Nothing made much of a difference. Finally we saw the Lake Worth Inlet and knew we had reached our destination. Now all we had to do was find enough money to pay for all the repairs and deferred maintenance that needed to be done.

We had intended to christen and officially rename our boat the first night out -- if you will recall, we were supposed to be anchoring and have a glass of champagne in one hand and some brie in the other. Instead we ended up scrambling for our lives (well, okay, maybe not our lives, but certainly our well-being!) at Cabbage Key. At some point we decided that trhe next logical moment for the re-christening ceremony would be at Lake Park Harbor when we finished the shakedown. So, when we arrived, we got the champagne out of the refrigerator,  took our captain and first mate shirts out of mothballs and asked Rick to take our picture.

Mike and Ann at the Re-naming of Traveling Soul