So in advance of the ship arriving in St. Thomas, Kirk had to sail the Salted Rim from Sarasota to Ft. Lauderdale where she would be floated on to the ship for safe passage to St. Thomas. I was not 100% recovered from COVID and doing a 3 day sail straight through was not appealing at that time (or dare I say ever). In a last minute scramble, Kirk was referred to a captain that would be interested in being an extra hand for the voyage. Mind you, he pulled all of this together within 48 hours.
On Tuesday, March 1st, Peter and Kirk left Longboat Key for Ft. Lauderdale. I stood at the slip and waved goodbye – what time was my massage?
According to Captain Kirk, a very successful outing with no issues aside from anchoring at night when it was pitch black. (Yikes) I met the boys in Ft. Lauderdale by car on Friday, March 4th. Kirk thought it best to have a few days cushion in Ft. Lauderdale because if your vessel was not in the loading area by 8am – well there were steep penalties to pay for making them wait on you. Now we had until Sunday to meet the ship, so naturally, we decided to make a weekend out of it and stayed in Ft. Lauderdale for the weekend. This is when I learned my new favorite phrase from a like minded couple that we met at the marina – anything associated to our boating trip that seems negative or a problem is merely “ a champagne problem”. That, my friends, keeps everything in perspective.
On Sunday, morning bright and early, Peter and Kirk put Salted Rim on the ship – exhale !Then we made our 3 hour journey by car back to Sarasota. OK – truth be known, I insisted that we get Hooters on the way back (well it is a Florida kinda thing, right.)
