Morning brought sunshine and promises of rain. We left via Government Cut following a container ship out to the sea buoy and turned north to Ft Lauderdale. This was to be a motor-sailing day with main only, tightly sheeted, as the winds were light and from the south. As we looked north there was a gray curtain that we soon discovered was dense rain. We looked at the radar to see wide bands of thunderstorms crossing our path limiting visibility to a few hundred feet. It looked like the storm would accompany us all the way to Ft. Lauderdale. Freddi maintained a radar watch with Scott at the helm. Identified targets were few (mostly small fishing boats) no doubt much more uncomfortable that we were aboard our 45-ton pilothouse ketch. Rather than chase the storm all the way north we decided to slow down and let the storm get ahead of us. Then, with the aid of the gulfstream we maintained an easy 8 kts as we steamed at low rpms for Port Everglades.

We cleared the 17th Street Causeway Bridge at 1430 on April 15 and were soon well anchored in a crowded but by now familiar Lake Sylvia in 11’ of water near the 15th St Bridge headed to our favorite dingy dock and raw bar. We’ve been in Lake Sylvia for a week, trying to limit trips to the raw bar, watching daily thunderstorms and fending off other boats that have not taken into account the varying forces of nature when they anchor.