We made it past Fort Lauderdale and caught up with Sam and Roberto in Hallandale, FL. Roberto has a slip here where he keeps his boat, Dream Catcher, and he has a condo in a high-rise overlooking the ocean.

Sam just flew out to Vermont this morning to pick up his car and paraglider.

We went out to a fabulous Italian dinner last night as a reunion feast.

Roark’s mother flew out yesterday to go skiing in Vermont too. His daughter Ashling and her friend Morgan are here. The plan is to cruise to the first of the keys tomorrow: Key Biscaine.

We got to have some spinnaker therapy yesterday on our way here. After passing through the Fort Lauderdale inlet on the ICW and passing two humongous cruise ships, we inflated the new gennaker.

Roark and I had talked about him getting a gennaker also, but he already has a symmetrical spinnaker. I said we should just try flying the symmetrical spinnaker like the asymmetrical gennaker that we have. After some research it turns out that other people have done it successfully. So we looked up the rigging in the Harken catalog, and then Roark decided to try it. After some trimming, tweaking, and fussing, it finally flew beautifully! It’s vintage 1972 also!

So we had some lovely spinnaker therapy!

The day before, we ran through Boca Raton, which really surprised us! So many of the homes that were right on the waterway were spectacular creations! Seeing them from the waterway rather than the road was wonderful. One after another they amazed us. Here are a few that really stood out!