We got hit with some heavy weather from the outer bands of tropical storm Elsa so we headed inland and took the protected intracoastal waterway from Fort Lauderdale to Miami. Our captain did not know about the 56′ bridge in Miami. Luckily our mast is 53′ so we cleared that with ease. All of us were quite nervous as we passes under it.
It was after dark when we exited the ditch for the open sea once again. There were multiple cruise ships in Port, and Norwegian Cruise Line has a fantastic terminal that was empty last night.
On our southbound journey we ran across a couple of issues:
- The main outhaul snapped, we jury rigged it, but need to run a line through the boom to do it right.
- The lower shroud poked a hole through the jib. We will hand the jib off to the sail maker on Stock Island for what we hope will be a speedy and inexpensive repair.
We plan to pick up some spare parts at West Marine, replace the main outhaul, refuel and top off our tanks while the sail maker works their magic. With any luck, we will be back on our way tomorrow afternoon.
If we can manage a late afternoon departure we should be able to pop in to the Dry Tortuga’s first thing in the morning to explore Fort Jefferson!