Plan B
18 December 2014 | Miami, FL Bell Island
Elizabeth
This is a photo of Skylark. She is not anchored in the Bahamas. She is not on a passage to the Bahamas. She is in Miami just off of Bell Island. Our auto pilot which was working fine last time we sailed anywhere made the very poor decision to test our wills and stopped working today. This happened just out of Ft. Lauderdale so we opted to divert to Miami rather than hand steer the entire 35 hours or so to the Bahamas. We could have done that, it is what sailors did before auto pilots were invented. But it's tiring and just didn't seem worth it. We came to Bell Island where we heard there are many amenities for transients, including a dog park, free city wifi and plenty of dinghy docks. Our experience in the very brief time we've been here has already been very different from Ft. Lauderdale, much more positive in terms of feeling like we are welcome here. Not only are there amenities but the people are friendly. It's funny how you can get a feel for a place fairly quickly.
We're not sure what's wrong with the auto pilot and don't know when we'll be able to leave again. Maybe it will be an easy fix. We'll start looking at everything tomorrow. In the meantime, Luna had a blast playing with a young dog at the dog park this afternoon after we got in and hopes to return tomorrow. It's been a long time since she got to run around and act like a normal dog.