In my last blog I mentioned my excitement in attending our first Trawlerfest. I knew something was going arye when our departure plans changed due to work commitments. Our initial plan was to arrive in Ft. Pierce on Saturday 01/22/11 and depart to Ft. Lauderdale the next day. We didn't get on the road until 01/25/11, about one hour into the 10 hour drive to Ft. Pierce, David said "I think I'm coming down with something" over the next 9 hours he progressively got worse. Headache, fever, cough, etc. etc. etc. We arrived at 9:00PM and decided to go ahead and provision in the hopes he would wake well rested and feeling better. No such luck; during the night he started burning up! We didn't have a thermometer on board (good to know while on dry land) so I hit the store first thing the next morning to retrieve one. By the time I took his temp he actually felt cool to the touch, however his fever was 101.9. Based on how he felt last night, there is no doubt he must have been about 104 to 105 earlier in the night.
I called my daughter to check in, she said to go to an urgent care and get a nose swab for the flu. David begrudingly agreed to go (only because he felt like he was dying) sure enough, a little swab of the nose and we had a positive diagnosis. It was definitely the flu! He asked the doc what the likelyhood of my catching the virus was, he said I would probably get it too. He graciously wrote a prescription for the both of us for Tamiflu. Oh my goodness, it's a miracle drug. Within 12 hours he felt 100% better and within 24 hours felt almost normal.
We had feared that our little trip to Lauderdale and Trawlerfest was doomed, but thanks to the doc-in-the- box and Tamiflu, it looked like we were still going to be able to attend; albeit a late arrival which would negate our plan to attend the PMU Classes but we would still be able to make it.
Since we were so far behind schedule we were contemplating our departure options and decided to try something new. I suggested to do a night run, we'd never done one before and I though, "we have to do it sometime" this was probably not the smartest idea after an immediate recovery from the flu, but what the heck, let's give it a shot.
Fat Bottom Girl departed Ft. Pierce Inlet at 5:30PM, in our in-experience we thought it would be best to get about 8 miles offshore before heading south. This may have been overkill, but we felt it was better to be safe than sorry. As always David begins with the first watch, in this case it worked out best because I can fall asleep at anytime, anywhere. However, once I'm alseep it's very hard to get me awake, especially if it's dark outside. I took a little nap and suprizingly woke up fully awake at 10:00PM for the beginning of my watch. Due to my perpensity to fall asleep sitting up, I power chugged two Starbucks Double Shot Espresso's. HELLO ATLANTIC, I'M WIDE AWAKE. What a beautiful night, perfect weather, perfect skys, perfect seas. Even though you couldn't see the bow from the helm chair, stepping out of the pilothouse doors onto the sidewalks was absoloutely wonderful. The stars were amazing, the salt air invigorating and I couldnt help but thank my lord and maker for such a blessing. David was sleeping peacefully, I was driving our boat (by myself) in complete darkness in the middle of the night in the open ocean and having the time of my life.
While on my watch I noticed that we were slowing down, our RPM's hadnt changed a bit, but we had slowed to almost 5 knots. I guess the 8 miles offshore created a strong push from the gulf stream, so we crept back in closer to shore to about 3 miles off and ZOOM, we were off again. Back up to 8.5 knots, but were able to reduce RPM's from 1800 to 1400.
We arrived outside of Port Everglades at about 6:00AM, so it took us 13 hours inlet to inlet. We noticed several freighters and cruise ships awaiting entry into the Channel and realized that there was a commercial anchorage just outside the entrace to the channel. We listened closely to the VHF and shot the gap when we had a safe opening.
I had called the Marina on Tuesday 01/25/11 to confim our reservation (even though we had a formal confirmation). It was a good thing I did because I was told they were SOLD OUT and they had no record of our reservation which had been made through PassageMaker in October. I emailed a copy of the reservation to the Marina and made about 5 calls to different people at PassageMaker (they had to be tracked down because they were all at Trawlerfest). With their assistance and persistance, they were able to secure us a slip.
We arrived at Bahia Mar Marina and were directed by the Dock Master to Dock D, Slip 400. We were parked amongst mega yachts; ships that had no resemblence to a trawler at all. I looked around and asked the Dock Master, where is Trawlerfest? He pointed to the complete opposite end of the property........
I went to see if I could convince the Marina office to move us to a slip somewhere in the general vacinity of Trawlerfest, but alass, they were sold out! We felt that our beautiful trawler had been exiled in Mega Yacht Land. Since we were supposed to have participated in the Trawler Crawl this posed a logistics issue and meant that we couldn't participate. At this point I felt like this was Trawler-Flop instead of Trawler-Fest.
We have now been awake for over 24 hours, but decided to go ahead and check-in and get our bracelet. Upon our arrival the sign for the Krogen 55 glowed like a neon sign and drew me in like a fly to honey. David was starving, but I convinced him to give me 5 minutes to go take a peek. We immediately ran into Bill Harris and John Gear of the Stuart Kadey Krogen Office, and then introduced to Greg, Laura and Shannon also of Kadey Krogen. The 55 was fantastic, what a georgous boat and quality craftsmanship! We toured this as well as the other Kadey's before heading for a quick bite of lunch.
David asked me when we returned to the marina "what are you going to do when you see a boat that you like better than ours"? I told him I had no fear whatsoever that would happen. After hours of touring trawlers of all makes and models, I can honestly say that my "Fat Bottom Girl" is still the best looking boat at the show. Her quality and features far exceed many of the new boats.
After being awake for about 30 hours, we decided it was time to draw the curtains and take a well needed nap. We woke 4 hours later starving, after a breif internet search we decided to try Coconuts Restaurant; a local hotspot and tourist attraction. This is completely out of character for us, as we prefer the off the beaten path spots where the locals eat, however we're in Ft. Lauderdale.... Coconuts was fantastic! The service, quality of the food and value was exceptional.
The next morning we rented bikes from the Marina, coincidentally we were the "Virgin Bike Renters". They opened their bike rental office that day and we were their first customers, how lucky is that? We rode for several hours and made a trip to West Marine to pick up a few necessary items. We had been discussing the possiblity of purchasing a FLIR First Mate for night vision / thermal imaging for months but kept putting off the idea due to the cost. I asked David if I could have the FLIR as my Valentines present (early of course) so we could have it for this trip. I told him I would in turn get him a new outboard for Little Girl for his Valentines present; that was all she wrote. We now own a FLIR, ha ha...
We departed Bahia Mar Marina on Sunday AM before dawn so we could test our FLIR :( it doesnt appear to work very well. I could see channel markers better with my naked eye than I could with the FLIR. That was very dissapointing to say the least since we've heard nothing but rave reviews. I think we just got a dud. We had an absoloutely wonderful cruise back to Fort Pierce and with the push of the gulf stream we got up to a whopping 11.5 knots at 1400 RPM's. We saw several dolphin and the biggest turtle either one of us had ever seen. The peace and serenity of cruising cannot be explained to those who have never experienced it. Some people think cruising offshore with nothing to see but open water would be boring, they say, "there's nothing to see". They have no idea the beauty the simplicity of the ocean can offer. Today was a good day and one that will be remembered for nothing more than the gift of pleasure and calmness the sea gave to us.
