Miami, here we come!!! JUST in time for Hurricane Dorian to arrive with a direct hit just north of Ft Lauderdale. We arrived safely after the plane rerouted via a landing from the West and into light Tropical Storm force wind.
Dorain Projected Winds
I will make a long story short…. We searched boats, up and down the coast, both coasts, and found NOTHING that could compare to our NautiKel. They were beat up, sun damaged, hurricane damaged, used, old, ugly, worn, projects, expensive, unworthy and generally some CRAP.
We were disheartened after thinking we may have found a great Oyster 49 in Georgia. Only to find that every cavity was filled with systems, and NO ROOM for ANY storage, whatsoever. We cant live on a boat like that,, even thought we really liked most things about it.although I’m sure she would have been a great sailing vessel. We looked at Benes, Leopards, Catanas, Mantas, Tayanas, one-offs, and even another Amel in our search for our “Forever” boat.
In the meantime and during our search, we decided to do some sight seeing, and we found beauty in St Augustine. What a picturesque, scenic and pleasant city. Should we need to spend time in Florida again, we would definitely make time to spend some time here.
One of Darren’s favourite parts of being back in civilized land was the Beer stops we made. He was in heaven. Remember we had been in Panama for two years with the only beers being Balboa, and the odd Guinness, if we got really lucky with the veggie boat.
We drove up from where we were staying in Brunswick to attend a Sunday service in Georgia. It was a two hour drive to get to Savannah, where the oldest African Baptist Church in America is.
This Church was Constituted in 1777 and both the white people and the African Americans were very happy for us ” foreigners” to join their service. The energy was very empowering and the service itself, right after Hurricane Dorian was amazing. Gospel Singers, a full band, and beautiful voices surrounded the church with love and prayers.
Treasure Island on the West Coast of Florida has beautiful broken shell beaches miles long and quaint little hotels and micro breweries.
Our last effort before we thought we may have to rethink our objectives was to head to Puerto Rico to look at a Knysna 44. Since we had friends in Puerto Rico, who owned a sailing school, we made contact with them to come and see them while we were on the island.
And off to Puerto Rico we went, But of course, as our luck was, as we flew into Puerto Rico, so did Hurricane Karen. Its landfall was expected to make a direct hit on the South East coast of Puerto Rico the day after our arrival.
