Hooray for Hollywood!

Posted by Alexander

Buildings like this line the entire coast of South Florida, for hundreds of miles with hardly a break.

After we left No Name Cay we sailed off to Hollywood. Not the fancy Hollywood with all the famous people but the Floridian version. The difference is that people have heard of one and not the other. Anyway the sail was beautiful because all the way you could see the Miami skyline. It was crazy to think that those skyscrapers are the biggest buildings we’ve seen all year and it really hit home the return to civilization. Not to say that the Caribbean is uncivilized but it is small and has a laid back attitude. The hustle and bustle of a city would be a very interesting change.

Sailing into Port Everglades, where the freighters wait to greet us.

The next and most unique step of the sail was through the Intra Coastal waterway.  A series of canals full of boats and to our annoyance bridges. The worst kind of bridges a sailboat can encounter, low bridges. We had to wait multiple times for the bridges to lift which thankfully they can do. We were able to use the time to make a tasty sandwich lunch so at least there is that.

Our timing wasn't very good on the bridge openings on this trip.  We had to wait quite a while for them.

We came in to the Intra Coastal Waterway at Port Everglades, which is the cruise ship and freighter terminal in Fort Lauderdale.  We passed some huge freighters.  Their decks were taller than the top of our mast! Christopher and I were up on the front talking as we passed them by. There was a lot of graffiti on the side of the concrete dock where the freighters were supposed to go. Christopher and I quickly noticed that the most popular name painted on the dock was Rex. We’re not sure if one guy was called Rex and wrote his name many times or if the majority of people named Rex end up as Graffiti artists. Either way if you know someone called Rex keep an eye on him…

These guys are huge!!

Sailing past them is a bit unnerving.  The top of our mast didn't even come up to the deck.

I had quite a scare while up on the front with Christopher. I had given him a punch (Don’t freak out it was a friendly punch and no one got hurt emotionally or physically, so you can hang up the phone and quit calling child services) when a police boat emerged from a canal alley. I jokingly said that they must be after me when their sirens turned on! For one split second I was sure I was going to prison but thankfully they sped on past and we laughed about it.

There go the police.  Fortunately they were after someone else.  (Maybe Rex?)

Scoping out the graffiti.

After a few more annoying bridges we arrived at our marina. We had to dock the boat twice because we needed to attach our boat to shore power but the outlets were to far away. We ended up spinning the boat around to be able to plug in. If you want to hear more about the Loggerhead Marina Katie is working on a great blog about it. That’s all for now.