Santa Barbara Lake, Pompano Beach

Saturday, June 25 was to be our big crossing from West End to Pompano Beach.  But at midnight (after going to bed at 9 pm earlier in the evening)  we were awakened by a phone call from Micah who was calling to say that he, Daniel and Daniel’s sister Caitlin were in West End and their dinghy had washed away.  Ironically, we had seen their dinghy on the beach when we walked back to Zendo from the restaurant.  They asked if we could help them get it the next day but we told them we were leaving by 5 a.m. so they said they would find another way.

Well, we both had trouble getting back to sleep at that point because we were so worried about them.  Lynn tried to text Micah to discuss another alternative but got no response. After a couple of fitful hours of sleep, she finally called again and got Micah.  They were sleeping on the beach after trying unsuccessfully to find the dinghy.  We talked them into coming onboard Zendo for a short rest and we would give them a ride to Scout on our way out of the marina at 0 dark thirty.  They arrived in 5 minutes, wet, tired and embarrassed.  The guys slept on the fly bridge and Caitlin in the salon for a couple of hours.

By  4:30 a.m. we headed out in pitch dark bound for Scout.  As we approached Scout, we saw several other sailboats also anchored. Jonny almost crossed one of the anchor lines, which were stretched out in the fast current and had to quickly kick into reverse to avoid getting tangled up in it.  Miraculously, we saw Scout’s dinghy tied up to one of the sailboats nearby.  And even more surprisingly, the owner of that sailboat was awake and on deck.  Fortunately, Daniel and Micah are so friendly that they had met this sailor and he recognized Scout’s dinghy as it was floating away in the current.  It actually got tangled up in his anchor line.  The guys were beside themselves with gratitude.  Jonny moved  Zendo as close to the sailboat as was safe so that Micah could jump in and with the fierce current swim like crazy to the dinghy.  He started it right up, motored back to us, picked up Daniel and Caitlin and off they went back to Scout.  They were so lucky to have recovered that dinghy!!  We’re sure they were absolutely exhausted the next day from stress and lack of sleep. 

We then proceeded to head west on our journey across the Atlantic back to the states.  It was still dark and we had two foot waves which wouldn’t have been too bad except that the intervals were short and the wave action was on our beam which made it very rolly.  We each  did two hour shifts at the helm while the other person napped (we didn’t get as much sleep the night before as we had planned).  We also forgot to prepare sandwiches for the trip in advance.  It was very unpleasant trying to go below due to the rolling motion and so we contented ourselves with eating granola bars and drinking water for the entire day.

We knew that we would be slowed down by the gulf stream current which runs north and we were heading south east.  But we didn’t anticipate that the gulf stream would be as wide as it was.  Instead of our usual cruising speed of 7 knots, we slowed down to 3-4b knots for many, many hours.  We hit a few rain squalls that required us to lower the curtains a couple of times.  It was a long slog but the wave action diminished some and we finally came into the Hillsborough Inlet and cruised down the intracoastal until we reached our anchorage in Santa Barbara Lake in Pompano just north of Fort Lauderdale.

After arriving, we celebrated our safe arrival with a couple of beers and lobster salad appetizers sitting on the foredeck to catch the evening breezes.  We called our family to let them know that we had arrived safe and sound and then fell fast asleep by 9 p.m. We were exhausted but happy!