Fairhaven to Fort Lauderdle

On Monday night, the six of us and our boat pushed off from Fairhaven and began cruising south. The plan was plotted to follow along the continental shelf, keeping
us anywhere from 25 to 200 miles off shore. In order to continue traveling around the clock, we split up into three groups. I had the 12pm to 4pm and the 12am to 4am shift with
Mike's friend Chris from Boston. Luc got the 8-12 shifts with captain Mike and Peter and Mike got the sunset/sunrise shifts from 4-8. While it is nice to watch the sun rise and fall, 4am
is a hell of a time to begin anything. A watch shift involves watching the radar and charts for potential hazards, namely buoys, shallow water and other boats.
It is fairly empty once you get more then fifty miles off shore, but we have had to chance course to avoid some other fishing boats and cargo ships. Watch also involves
engine room checks every hour and plotting the course on a physical chart. Aside from the eight hours of watch each day, we are free to read, watch movies, play games, sleep, etc.
There have been some cool encounters with wildlife along the way. On the first morning just after sunrise, those awake were joined by 40 or so porpoise playing in the wake and jumping at the bow. Check out the
video. Later that day, we saw a smaller pod of porpoise, a jumping marlin and a jumping dolphin. Mike, who missed seeing all of these aquatic animal displays, claimed to have seen a mermaid.
The next day, we caught some 30-knot winds coming from a storm blowing off of Cape Hatteras and spent around 18 hours in 5-foot seas. This is very exhausting. No one got seasick, but no one really enjoyed the experience.
The next day, we found that we had two small finches that stowed away on the boat. They must have gotten caught in the heavy winds and were lucky to find a place to land. Luc was able to catch one of them a few moths and feed it.
We passed within 20 miles of Cape Canaveral and were able to see the two shuttles scheduled to launch on October 12th to fix the space station. On Friday morning, we arrived at the new river in Lauderdale and met up with the towboats to pull us up the river. We got in, did a four-hour wash down to remove all of the salt and finch poop. The shipyard is Roscioli and roughly 3 miles from the downtown area. It is a fairly industrial yard and has only covered slips. Our boat stays in a big enclosed room. This is good because it keeps it cleaner, but it also means that we are unable to work on the boat in the sun.
This weekend, we made it out to the bars, found treasure in a cool nearby park called secret woods and visited LB in South Beach for some surfing and surf kayaking. It was great and we will definitely be back to visit her. Peter left this morning for Atlanta. I really enjoyed getting to hang out with him. I think he might try to get into the industry as well. Luc, Mike and I are going to spend the day looking for a bike for mike, playing some ultimate with the local pickup group and watching some football. So, life is good and steamy down here. I will see many of you in a week for Mike and Beth Neder’s wedding. My car made it safely to Atlanta, which is good, because many people were convinced that it was going to get stolen and disassembled in a chop shop somewhere.