So in the last few weeks we have taken delivery of our baby, I had actually written a spirited blog post, peppered with bad jokes and descriptive information on the purchase process and after penning several hundred words and hitting "UPDATE" I got a "you are not logged in" message and lost it. Haven't had the time to sit down and recreate it again which is a shame. Any hooooo

So - we took delivery of our boat almost a month ago in mid June and opted to NOT have our first voyage be by our own hands, through the Fort Lauderdale New River, passed the Jungle Queen, numerous bridges and people with even less helming experience than my own so instead we opted to take Catamaran Companies generous offering of a captain that could bring us out to our Marina in Hollywood that next morning. So this is what we did. Good thing too as we DID pass the Jungle Queen which takes up 70% of the channel right at critical bridge (would have SHAT myself if confronted with that with just me and wifey at the helm). Anyways we safely made it to the marina and then set about over the last few weeks (weekends to be more precise) to venture just out of our Marina into the South Lake just to the north of us in Hollywood which offers up a dangerous Wave Runner infested madhouse AND a No Wake area. So we carefully chug through the Alpha Males spinning around in circles on their crotch rockets and then drop anchor safely in the No Wake zone. Lovely! I could stay there all day but usually Wifey gets itchy to move. I have NOT navigated a bridge opening as of yet myself as the formality of the dialog has scared me a bit to be honest. Instead we have opted for the sanity of South Lake and have been just enjoying ourselves on the boat. We decided to invite out a load of my wife's friends for the 4th of July and we had a blast (in South Lake yet again). We installed a BBQ and have been struggling with our Dinghy (I will write a Dinghy related blog post to go over the trials and tribulations of that!) but now this morning July 11th 2015 we are about to kick off the diapers and go PASSED South Lake, through the Hollywood Blvd bridge, into North Lake - Fuel Dock (first for us) and then north another couple of bridges and out of Port Everglades! Out into the ocean deep! Then, turning south we are going to go all the way down to Government Cut Miami and then end up somewhere west of Key Biscayne and will spend our first night on the boat! We are still motoring around, sails might as well not even be on the boat until we get some tutoring and training in.

Docking has been a challenge, even with 2 motors I was relying heavily on motor and rudder movements and had a HELL of a time my first attempt to dock back in our home marina. Scary stuff, nearly bumping concerned looking neighbors. Generally terrifying but I have a handle on the strategy that seems to work and the last couple of attempts have been only mildly scary but I am going to be nervous doing that for quite a while. Fuel Dock has scared me a bit, we were given about a half tank (well TANKS) and we have drawn that down to about a quarter on port and a bit more starboard. Time to man-up and go tie up to a fuel dock. I realize that sounds silly to people that know what they are doing but it is a pressure packed sequence of things that have to work or else a lot of people will see you screwing up.

Anyways, not sure if anyone is reading these anyways but I hope as we throw off our diapers and chains and start to venture farther out that we will be interesting to read. My father comes down in 2 weeks and I need to make the Key Biscayne / Biscayne Bay thing now if I have any hopes of making it back down with him and possibly my Aunt and Uncle as well during his visit. Looking forward to sleeping on the boat tonight!