First destination from Daytona— Fort Lauderdale. We started traveling down the ICW (also known as the ditch).
We only had a few small hiccups along the way. Overall the weather was beautiful. We were able to anchor out each night except in Vero Beach, they didn’t even have mooring balls available. (We stayed on the fuel dock overnight that night)
Another small hiccup was at this bridge. First it was closed because President Trump was headed to Mar-a- Lago and so the bridge was closed for the motorcade. Then once it was reopened we found out it since it is a temporary bridge under construction that it does not follow ICW rules for bridges and is only 65 ft at LOW tide. Which meant we had to drop anchor and wait 4 hours for the tide to go down.
But overall the trip was beautiful. Lots of dolphins, beautiful sunrises and sunsets. We even got some boat projects done underway. Aislin and I hung the prayer flags while we were waiting on the tide at the Southern Boulevard Bridge.
Ben went up the mast to reattach the lines to the sail cover.
We were able to find great little anchorages right off the ICW. Here’s one down in the Palm Beach area.
We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving day. We stayed at the Las Olas Marina to wash the boat, fill with water and catch up on laundry.
We got in early enough that we had time that afternoon to walk to Chima Brazilian Steakhouse for a Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious and beautiful and all decorated for the holidays. A perfect day.
Wow! What beautiful shots. Good job clinging to that mast, Ben! Miss you guys!
Nice adventure of a life! Thanks for the photos. Neat! Happy Birthday Dear Aislin! Say, why do they call the Intracoastal Waterway “the ditch”???
The intracoastal waterway is made up of some natural inlets, bays, and sounds but it also has long stretches of artificial canals. Long stretches of land on either side of the water. Driving the ICW in Florida is like driving I-10 through Texas!
Are you using a drone to get all those fabulous aerial photos?
If so, what make/model?
You may have already covered this and I missed the post….
Benjamin bought himself a DJI spark drone that he controls with a remote connected to his cellphone. As soon as we drop anchor he’s out on the bow flying it and getting some great photos. He loves that thing!
Yes, I used a DJI spark to take those shots. Im pretty happy with the drone.