December 2, 2007. Well, this is a first. I went to save this trip report and it wouldn’t let me as there was already a file named December 2, …. last years. I’ve been writing longer than realized so now I’ll have to start throwing in the year as well.

We left Lake Worth and headed for Fort Lauderdale at 0700.

We don’t like to travel in Florida on the weekends because of all the boaters with more money than brains. That’s the only reason we stayed an extra day in Lake Worth. We figured that we could head out on a Sunday morning because we’d be traveling out in the ocean, so our exposure to dipshits should be minimal. Of course, I forgot about the 400 Sunday fisherman that would be out trolling directly across our bow.

This also gave the anchorage we’d chosen for tonight a chance to empty out. Lake Sylvia is a tiny lake favored by the locals as a weekend hangout. We arrived on Sunday afternoon just as the local boats were upping anchor and heading home.

Our trip south started with a favorable current sucking us towards and then out the Lake Worth Inlet. Once into the ocean there was just enough breeze to shut off the engine for a couple of hours and sail along at a little better than 6 knots. There was also a favorable current so we were making good time until the breeze slowed to the point that we had to restart the engine and motorsail.

It was kind of a gray day; one moment the sun was out and the next moment there were threatening rain clouds. It was kind of funny though as when the sun was upon us, the wind died right down. As soon we headed into the next bank of clouds the wind would pick up enough to give us a nice burst speed.

When we turned into the inlet at Fort Lauderdale the wind completely died and the heat really set in as we rode the tide in. It’s a short motor north in the ICW to Lake Sylvia. The entrance into the lake is a local knowledge thing. You have to hug one shore of the entrance inappropriately close to have water deep enough to get into the lake.
Once inside the lake has deep water practically throughout.


Walking the dogs here is a pain in the ass as the dinghy ride is about a mile to a tiny public park. The lake here is surrounded by high dollar waterfront homes so it’s off to the park for us. The biggest West Marine on the east coast is here in Fort Lauderdale. Getting there involves a longish dinghy ride to a local restaurant where they charge you 10 dollars to tie up for the day. If you eat a meal there that day they will apply the dinghy dockage fee towards your dinner, so I knew where we were spending happy hour.

We walked a couple of miles during the day as we hit the mother of all West Marines, a couple of different watermaker stores and Bluewater Books.

Bluewater Books is the ultimate boater’s bookstore. There’s one in Newport, Rhode Island by the name of The Armchair Sailor and this is the other, now we’ve been to both. If you need a chart for anyplace in the world this would be the place to look. There’s also courtesy flags, navigational tools, English to whatever language books and boaters medical books. That’s what we’re looking for, kind of a medical reference of some type.

We grabbed a selection of possible choices and then sat down in the reading area to compare books. We went through each book looking up the suggested treatment for a couple of imaginary problems; kidney stones and second degree burns.

It was kind of shocking to see the wide disparity between some of the books. A couple of the books didn’t mention kidney stones while one of the books didn’t have any section on burns of any type, not even sunburn. I thought our 2 fictitious choices would be fairly common maladies. One book was ridiculously simple in its advice. Some of the medical gems were, for a cut “apply direct pressure and call a doctor”. For a burn, “apply cold compresses and call a doctor”, for poisoning “do not induce vomiting and call a doctor”. I guess it was written by the AMA.

We did end up with a book that Christy deemed as being good for our purpose. So now we’re ready to heal ourselves, until we can call a doctor.

On Monday night we spent some time with a young Canadian couple anchored near us in the lake. They have the same type of boat as our friends the Freedoms so all 6 of us got together on Freedom for an impromptu happy hour.

We had met them briefly in Vero Beach during the Thanksgiving feast. They plan to circumnavigate the world in their Gemini catamaran. They’ve got 4 to 5 years set aside for this tremendous undertaking. I’m not really sure how old they are but I’d say definitely a few years shy of thirty. Then again everybody is starting to look younger to me. We talked about spots to see, anchoring and the attitudes they’ve encountered probably because of their youth. What they lack in experience, they certainly make up for with enthusiasm. I think they’ll do well, probably write a book also.