Friday Sept 7
Three of us arrived blurry eyed from the overnight flight from SFO, but ready to get started prepping ourselves and the boat for the journey north. First on the agenda was to find a place to stay, initially I thought it would be easier to stay in a hotel for a few nights as the boat may be in complete disarray. Instead we followed Jack’s lead to stay on the boat at a hotel Marina, Jack has a lot of personal knowledge of Fort Lauderdale so we let him make the decision on location and make the arrangements at the Fort Lauderdale Hilton Marina, which was an great choice, much closer to the places we needed to be driving to and from as well as close to cocktails. We got the boat moved over from the private dock it sat at since June and secured ourselves behind some of the many mega yachts that make our proud ship look a bit small. The afternoon began the beginning of significant credit card exercise at West Marine.
Saturday Sept 8
Our 4th crew member, Cynthia, arrived in time for our shakedown cruise which also included Jack’s friend Alan. More eyes the better to find any issues with the boat before we head out to sea. We spent a good portion of the day enjoying the fresh breeze and putting Ryana through her paces. No significant issues were found except a few lose shackles that were tightened up. We returned to the Hilton Marina said farewell to Alan and wandered back to West Marine as well as the grocery for provisioning. We packed the Escalade to the gills which showed it just wasn’t frivolous upgrade, we needed the space, I’m a bit upset I didn’t get a picture.
The evening was met with lively conversation as we met up with Cynthia’s cousins and Jack’s brother and sister-in-law for dinner at the Raw bar (one of Jack’s old haunts). After a number of rounds and many individual sea creatures consumed it was back to the boat to get some good rest before our watch schedule would begin.