M/V ILLUSIONS                              TX TO FL CRUISE TRIP 4 LOGS In Ft Lauderdale, FL, including Hurricane Floyd September 5-16, 1999 Sunday, September 5, 1999      Angela’s mother and two sisters from Paraquay had been visiting with us in Houston since August 15.  When we made our plans to return to the boat, we bought tickets that would allow us to fly to Miami with her relatives, who would be changing planes in Miami enroute to South America.  We had had a great visit, and there was a lot of crying going on at the airport Sunday night when we saw them to their plane. They left the gate area at ten ‘til nine; we met our taxi at 9pm, by prior arrangement.  We were at the boat in Ft Lauderdale about 9:40pm, and we thought about the good visit just ended.      One of Angela’s sisters had never been to the United States; the other had been there and wanted to see all she could see while she was there.  Mama was 82 years old, but she tried to keep up and generally did fine.  We took them to see the Galleria, with its ice skating rink and hundreds of shops.  We went downtown and rode the glass elevator at the Hyatt Regency.  A driving tour of downtown Houston and the River Oaks residential section was followed by a tour of the Medical Center and Rice University.  We saw two IMAX movies at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.      Angela took her relatives to Space Center Houston, where they saw three IMAX movies.  We took the free Port of Houston tour on the M/V Sam Houston, a 100-foot boat with attentive staff and good air conditioning.  That was one of the hottest periods in Houston in my memory, with high temperatures over 100 degrees F on numerous days.  We went to Shanghai Red’s for dinner, where we saw the Houston Ship Channel turning basin where the M/V Sam Houston had taken us for the tour.  As we were explaining how the tugs push and pull an ocean-going ship end for end in the turning basin, a big red ship backed right up to our window at the restaurant and the tugs showed us exactly how it’s done.      Angela took them shopping, of course, in several of our local shopping areas.  We ate at the Kemah Crab House, outside on a night with lower temperatures than usual; and we rode the little train and looked all around the Kemah waterfront.  We ate at Ninfa’s in Baytown by the spectacular new Highway 146 bridge and watched the sun set behind the bridge. We took them to Joe’s Bar B Que in Alvin on Tuesday nights, where the best fried shrimp in the world are offered with their usual great meats.  And we had a bad steak at Perry’s Grill, which usually is a pretty good place.      One very special event we attended was the hot air balloon festival at NASA on Saturday, August 28.  The roughly 100 balloons were beautiful, and Angela’s sister, Malena, who is a professional photographer, took some excellent pictures of the balloons overhead.  She took great pictures everywhere, including the downtown buildings and our freeway exchanges, which were very interesting to our guests.  It was Open House at NASA Houston, and we toured the Sonny Carter Training Facility, home of the NBL, Neutral Buoyancy Lab, with a huge (400 by 200 feet) swimming pool 40 feet deep.      We went to Moody Gardens in Galveston with Angela’s sister Elvira and her daughters, Monica and Melissa, and toured the Rain Forest and the newly-opened Aquarium.  The view from the top floor of the new hotel is excellent; you can see the Gulf of Mexico and the Intracoastal Waterway from there.  At the beach, Blasita got her feet wet in the Gulf, her first experience with a sea or ocean.  She was joined by Malena and the girls.  We toured Galveston, with its Victorian houses, large hospital complex, downtown, and port.      On two Sunday afternoons we spent the lunch hour and part of the afternoon at South Shore Harbour, eating lunch outside by the pool, swimming, and riding the jet boat up and down the creek and Clear Lake.  It had been a good visit; we had seen and done a lot. Monday, September 6, 1999      On Monday morning, Angela said she hadn’t cried enough.  She felt her relatives were likely to come in and sit down at the breakfast table with us any minute.  She felt like they hadn’t left yet, so her grieving was not over.  At 11:30am, we called Paraquay to see if they had arrived safely.  We were surprised to find they were still in Miami!  Their plane had run over something which caused a flat tire during take-off.  The airline had canceled their flight, put them into the airport hotel about midnight, and made new plans for them to leave again on Monday night.  Angela had been right; they had not left us yet.      We borrowed a car and drove to Miami International Airport Hotel and had lunch with the three of them. Then we toured them around what we knew of Miami, Miami Beach, Ft Lauderdale downtown and the beaches, and back to the airport.  We were able to show them our boat at its dock in Ft Lauderdale, and we were able to show them the Atlantic Ocean.  Blasita got her feet wet in the Gulf and the Atlantic on the same trip!      We helped them to get checked in at the airport and down to the gate with all their carry-ons, again; and we saw them off again at ten ‘til nine pm.  This time the plane took off, and they had arrived safely by noon of the following day.  We returned to the Ft Lauderdale area, bought groceries, filled the car up with gasoline, and returned to our dock. Tuesday, September 7, 1999      On Tuesday we settled our bill with Peter, the son of our landlord, Dave.  Peter had taken our boat to New River Marina to get the bottom job done and get some maintenance done.  We paid him the yard bill, which was high, plus 10% for his efforts on our behalf.  He got the wrong heat exchanger cleaned, but that might have been partly my fault, too.      To settle up with Dave (another month’s rent was due), I met with him in his home office.  He described how he was planning to move us to a small floating dock with one 15-amp shore power plug for the refrigerator.  He said we should do without air-conditioning and just run a couple of fans.  I didn’t care for that idea, so we agreed to part company.      We left the New River and passed through Port Everglades on the ICW heading South.  I had information about some Miami-Dade marinas that I thought we could visit, starting with the one at Bakers Haulover Inlet, just north of Miami Beach.  We passed a nice marina at Hollywood on the way down, and I asked the attendant about slip availability and prices on the radio.  When we got to Haulover Park Marina, I didn’t like it at all.  It was right on the ICW and subject to frequent surges from passing boats.  There were no transient cruising boats there, just commercial fishing vessels which would go out the pass in the morning to fish.  We turned around and went back up to Hollywood.       Traveling on the ICW in this area was slow, very slow.  Our antennas were down, so we didn’t have to wait for bridges to open for us.  But the whole area seemed to be a slow, no wake, minimum wake, etc. area, partly because of manatees and partly because of the businesses and residences on the shoreline.       We passed an area called Aventura, which looked to be really expensive, with high-rise condos, marinas, shops, etc.  Located there were Turnberry Isle Resort and Club and The Waterways, both exclusive areas.      It started to rain, and we pulled into the marina and tied up and plugged in during the rainfall.  It was then we discovered that an adapter was missing from our shore power connections.  We put our shore power cords back on the boat, pulled out different ones, and then had to add an extension to get two circuits.  The attendant wasn’t sure what the marina had in the way of shore power; otherwise he was very nice and helpful.  We had inadequate power all night, so we used the generator in the morning to avoid tripping circuit breakers. Wednesday, September 8, 1999      Early on Wednesday I called New River Marina to see if we could get in for more maintenance and got an okay to come in.  Then I called Peter.  He asked if I was calling about our adapter; he said he had seen it on his dock right after we left.  (But he didn’t call us, did he?  He had our phone number.)  I told him I wanted the photos he had taken of the boat during the bottom job.  We got both later as his wife, Collette, brought them to New River Marina and left them for us.      I had a copy of Waterfront News, and the classified section had dockage for rent.  I believe I called 40 or so possible locations and landlords, and we went to see two of them on our way back up the New River (we know it pretty well by now). When we were settled in our slip at the marina, our mechanic, Shane came to the boat and removed the port heat exchanger.      The Ft Lauderdale area is noted for its miles of navigable canals.  After having been down some of them, we know that some are not wide enough for us to turn around in.  It appeared that many of the boats behind the houses and apartment complexes belonged to transients like us, who did not want to pay the marina fees for dockage.  It appeared, also, that some or many of these property owners needed the dockage income to make ends meet.  We heard that long-time property owners were being squeezed by increasing property taxes, matching increasingly higher valuations for their property.      Marina slip fees were $0.50-1.00 per foot per night, and higher at some posh marinas, and higher in the October-April time period.  Dockage rental rates for a spot behind a home or apartment building were usually $300-600 per month, and most places did not allow live-aboards.  We had problems getting enough electricity; two 50-amp, 110-volt circuits, or one 220-volt, 50-amp circuit, were hard to find. Thursday, September 9, 1999      I began to get sick on Tuesday evening, probably in the rain at Hollywood Marina.  I remained sick, just a summer cold, really, through Friday.  Angela started getting it on Friday, so it was a period of not much going on except get the maintenance done and find a dock to keep our boat.     On Thursday a nice lady came out to the marina to see our boat.  She was going to take us to see her dock space if it looked to her like we might fit.  She said we were too big for her canal, so don’t bother coming over there.  She did take us to the grocery store, though; and she brought us back after she and we finished our shopping.      Shane returned with the port heat exchanger and verified that the port unit was more in need of cleaning than the starboard unit.  He reinstalled and pressure-tested it; and as he left, he assured us we would be finished by the end of the day. Friday, September 10, 1999      Since we had not heard from Shane, I went to the front desk to make inquires about getting our work completed.  Janet, from England, was the receptionist; and she had worked there a few days.  We were assured several times we would be complete on Friday, and Janet checked and told me they did work on Saturday.      When Shane did show up, it was to put in the two flexible shafts for the tachometers (special made and high priced) and to tell us that he was not working on Saturday.  He was having trouble getting the parts he had ordered, and would not be able to complete some of the work.      I paid the bill about 4pm and got permission to spend another night there. Saturday, September 11, 1999      We got a late start leaving the marina, but eventually got underway and went to our first dock space for rent.  The World War II veteran was one who could use the extra income, and the canal was narrow.  Also, it was located almost at the navigable end of that section of the waterway, near Highway 441.  The second spot was on New River, and the prospective landlady was so deaf we could not communicate.  I decided we didn’t want to be on that section of the New River.  They run tour boats up and down the river, creating surges which can really move the boats around.  Also, all the marinas and yards up the river from there generate a lot of traffic on the river.      The place I had hoped would be a good spot for us turned out to be good.  It was on the North Fork of the New River, with no tour boats and less traffic.  In fact, the 11th Avenue swing bridge had to be opened for any boat higher than 4 feet off the water, which was almost everyone.  That bridge was opened by the operator turning a gear in the middle of the bridge.  After the traffic was halted, he inserted a metal handle in the gear and walked in a circle, pushing the handle with both hands and arms, and turning the gear around several times until the bridge was open enough to let us by.      We met our new landlord and plugged into his shore power and water.  Soon we had a problem with the shore power circuit breaker.  By turning off all but one air conditioner, we were able to get it going continuously.  After speaking to him about it, we started walking to town.      After walking 6 blocks, we turned around and went back.  It was too hot, and the walk was not as nice as I had hoped it would be.  I corrected some things on the boat and called a taxi.  We had a good time “downtown” on Los Olas Blvd., and came back to the boat after dinner.  The shore power quit for good after that, so we ran the generator all night. Sunday, September 12, 1999      Our landlord, Brad, got his neighbor, Tom, to come look at the shore power, and Tom had us back in power by noon.  We met Helen, Brad’s wife, and visited with them for a while-nice people.  Angela didn’t feel well, and it was so hot-we just stayed indoors and wrote trip reports and read.  We began to hear serious reports about Hurricane Floyd, so we started thinking about our own preparations for the storm.      Sunday evening we taxied over to Pier 66 for dinner.  We had a coupon for a free desert, and we couldn’t let that expire at the end of the month without using it.  The hotel and restaurant were deserted; no pun intended.  The 17th Street Causeway was being replaced with a much higher bridge over the Intracoastal, and the entrance to the Hyatt Pier 66 was a mess.  Also, it was hot, the off season; and the tourists were not due there until October.   A lot of the residents were on vacation, someplace cool, up north, hopefully.  My uncle, from Port St Lucie, FL, was vacationing for the month of September in the mountains of North Carolina.                    The late-night news about Hurricane Floyd was not good.  The storm was larger and more dangerous than Hurricane Andrew, which devastated south Florida and Dade County in 1992.  It was headed for Miami and Ft Lauderdale but expected to turn to the north. Monday, September 13, 1999      When we got up on Monday, the news on Hurricane Floyd was worse.  The turn to the north had not occurred, and the storm was headed for Ft Lauderdale.  A hurricane watch was declared for the Florida coast from Hallandale to Flagler Beach.  We were in that area.  Nothing else was on the television during the day other than the storm preparations.  People started boarding up their homes, and we started lengthening dock lines and adding fenders and fender boards.      A guy named Jim came by in a dinghy dropping an anchor for a boat on the other side of the river.  I asked him what he was doing.  He said these boats needed to get away from the docks, and two anchors across the river would do that.  I got our reserve anchor put together and ran a line from the anchor to a float, so we could recover the anchor if anyone ran over and cut the anchor line.      We did the same for the forward anchor and chain, and then we relaxed both of them to let the line and chain settle on the bottom.  We believed when high water came we could let out on our dock lines and pull in our anchor lines and thereby move away from the dock.  After the water went back down, we did not want to be in our landlord’s yard, or on top of his dock.  With that arrangement, we would be in contact with the shore, so we could pull ourselves into the dock when necessary.      Next we removed all small items from the aft deck and flying bridge, and we prepared the boat for our eventual departure.  We were not sure when that would be, but we needed to bring some cushion covers with us whenever that was, so we started packing them.  Mandatory evacuations were announced for beach areas.  The hurricane watch area was extended to Florida City, south of Miami.  The turn to the north had not occurred.      Stores were running out of bottled water, plywood, and lumber.  It was announced that all air flights out of the Bahamas would cease at a certain time.  Cruise ships changed their itineraries.  Notice was given to mariners that opening bridges would be locked down at !am, which was later changed to 11pm in Dade County, 8pm in Broward County (Ft Lauderdale).  Our friends, Willie and Michelle, in Melbourne, were ordered to evacuate at 4pm; they drove to Tampa.      The strongest sustained winds were 155 mph, one mph less than a Category 5 storm.  The diameter of the storm was quite large, 200 or more miles with tropical storm force winds, 400 miles total diameter.  The weather forecasters said there had been only two Category 5 storms to come ashore in the United States in the twentieth century.      It seemed to us that we needed to stay with the boat to be able to use the anchor system and then retrieve the anchors after the storm was over.  We bought more groceries so we could stay a few days more if necessary.  We asked ‘what if’ questions and prepared additional lines.  We worried about falling avocados and other fruits, or falling trees.  We stowed the outdoor grill, wrapped the dinghy cover and the dinghy with polypropylene rope, and tied our lines high on the dock pilings.      Dade County ordered mandatory evacuations for 272,000 people and asked for voluntary evacuations of 120, 000 more.  Public buses started bringing people to shelters, 10-12 open in Dade and Broward counties.  Our area was put under a hurricane warning.  Hotels on the beaches were evacuated; vacationers and conventioneers were taken to shelters.  American Airlines announced the cancellation of all flights into or out of Miami and Ft Lauderdale.  All schools, colleges, city services, and most businesses were to be closed the following day. Tuesday, September 14, 1999      We checked the weather report at 5am, and the expected turn to the north had started to occur.  Top winds had dropped to 145 mph from 155.  It looked more like our area might only get tropical-force winds, say 40-60 miles per hour.  We slept a little longer.      Continental Airlines said their 7am and 9:30am flights went out of Ft Lauderdale; all others were canceled for all of Tuesday and Wednesday morning.  We re-booked our original flights from Tuesday to Thursday morning at 9:30am.      Other boats on the river there had tightened their anchor lines, making travel on the river impossible.  I tightened our two lines, pulling us away from the dock a few feet.  High tide was at noon, and the water was not over the bulkhead but was a few inches below the top.  The tops of our pilings were 4 feet above the water level.  We began to feel the wind pushing the boat around.  Rain started about 1pm.      We were still under a hurricane warning at 1pm.  No flights were going into or out of Miami or Ft Lauderdale.  All the planes had been moved out of that area.  Mandatory evacuations were still in effect, and the sheriffs were threatening arrests for people on the beaches or in residences in the evacuation areas.  There were people on the beaches, however; so those were just threats more than anything else.      We got very little rain and almost no wind.  I was reminded of the many hurricanes and tropical storms which had seemed to threaten our area in Houston.  We would prepare for the storm, which usually didn’t come; and we waited around wondering what it would do.  Hurricane Floyd was like that, for us, in Ft Lauderdale.  We had made some good preparations, but the storm didn’t come our way.       At 5pm the hurricane warnings were lifted in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, mandatory evacuations were removed, transit services started taking people from shelters, schools and public services and airlines announced they would be open the next day, etc.      In South Carolina, the governor ordered mandatory evacuations for 900,000 people in low-lying areas and the City of Charleston, over a 12-hour period of time.  Something like 2 million people hit the roads and jammed them up so no one could move.  Hours later some smart person allowed the use of all 6 lanes of the freeway out of Charleston, eliminating the incoming lanes.      Freeways in Florida were likewise jammed as residents moved, first away from the coast, then back to their homes.  Home Depot announced they usually sell 26,000 sheets of plywood in a week in Florida; in preparation for Hurricane Floyd they sold over 500,000 sheets of plywood.      We moved back closer to the dock and removed the extra lengths to our lines, ate dinner, played cards, and watched on television the celebratory mood in South Beach, Miami, after the close brush with disaster.  The Bahamas had undoubtedly been hurt, but we had no video and no reports of that damage.  One television program described the reaction to Hurricane Floyd as the largest evacuation ever conducted in the United States. Wednesday, September 15, 1999      Angela had trouble sleeping due to winds moving the boat around.  The stairs we had reinstalled on the side of the boat had dropped off the dock at high tide, or when the boat was pushed away from the dock, and hung straight down on the side of the boat. When I stepped on one step to go down to the dock, the 8 screws, holding the two brackets on the deck, all pulled out.  The set of stairs went into the drink.  I got a boat hook and felt around in the 6 feet or so of water and soon found and retrieved them, and all 4 wheels were still attached!  We reinstalled the screws with some caulk to keep the water out until a proper fiberglass repair could be made.      The wind was stronger than we had experienced so far, and the hurricane was over and gone-go figure.  Jim came around at noon to retrieve the anchors.  I gave him $20 per anchor.  He and his boss do boat maintenance, so I had a new resource in Ft Lauderdale.  We were going to go to the beach, but neither of us felt very good, so we stayed in the boat and made final preparations for the return home.  We did get out and walk around the neighborhood; our location was almost at the upper end of the navigable portion of the North Fork of the New River, bounded on the north by Broward Blvd., in a historic subdivision called Sailboat Bend.  Brad, our landlord, was on the Board of the civic association there. Thursday, September 16, 1999      Brad offered to drive us to the airport, and we accepted.  He and Helen were very nice to us.  When we got home, I went to the doctor.  After reading a book about Florida hurricanes, I’d think there was a 100% chance of a hurricane in September in Florida.  That’s probably why my uncle and others go north for the month.