Those that have known us for while will have heard us talk many times about our cruising plans and although they are vague (apart from buying a catamaran, drinking rum and sailing to exotic places) we always had our starting point set in Florida. The simple reason is that Florida, and to be specific Fort Lauderdale, is the mecca for boat sales. It’s the place where boat owners, boat sellers, dreamers, cruisers, wannabe’s and neverwannaseeaboatagain types converge while the vultures, I mean boat brokers, circle overhead.

We flew into Orlando from Hawaii and thought we’d spend a while settling and do some of the big ticket items like Disney, Warner Bro’s Movie World and even a satellite launch at the space centre. The culture shock was brutal, gone were the barefooted bikini/board short wearing locals that stop their car to let you cross the road when they see you from 50m away. Gone also were the chickens running on the footpaths, the booming surf and the berry super smoothies. Welcome to matching tracksuits, roads as wide as runways, cars the size of buses and fast food outlets on every corner.

Ok I’m being a little dramatic but you get the idea. Alas after two days in a resort we just couldn’t quiet the nagging voices that were urging us Southwards to find a boat in Fort Lauderdale and so we hit the 6 lane roads to find home.

Fort Lauderdale is actually a really nice place, the beaches are reminiscent of Perth, but with lots of palm trees and fat people on them.

However inland is where it gets interesting, there is a network of canals that splits the land like a modern day Venice and it is here that the most amazing diversity of boats are to be found. The canals start large but then split into smaller offshoots that often split again and take you into the middle of suburbia. Anything from dinghy’s to super yachts are to be found here. Space is at a premium and it’s not uncommon to see a multi million dollar mega yacht moored outside a fibro shack that, were it not for its location, would be worth $50K.

Anyway we had a plan, we knew what we wanted down to the make, model and size, only we’d never actually been on one before. We were actually really lucky and found a couple of really nice brokers who took us round for a few days looking at various boats including our target species. One of them even took us out for a day on the water in a brand new power boat (you’re a legend Wiley!) We also met other brokers but only on the phone which was as close as we ever wanted to be to them! As sure of the boat we wanted, we were equally sure of the boat we didn’t want but one of the brokers showed us one anyway just in case. We tried to stay staunch and convince our hearts that we had the right plan but after looking at quite a number of boats we had to give in. The boat we thought we wanted (Leopard 46) is not the boat for us, the boat we said we’d never buy because of its looks and performance Lagoon is so clearly the right boat for us. At least we didn’t have to debate it between us, we just knew!

Ok so they’re ugly and they sail a bit slower but OMG you cannot beat the space and comfort on the Lagoons, they are also extremely seaworthy and pretty much impossible to flip. Unfortunately there aren’t many of these around as they’re a newer model but in the end we found one, not in Fort Lauderdale!!! This is why we haven’t planned any of the rest of the trip, we cant even get the first stage right! So she’s a year old, has crossed the Atlantic from France and is now in the Southern Caribbean. The current owners had planned a 3 year trip and loaded her with everything including solar power, water maker, air conditioning and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately one of them has not been able to get on top of her sea-sickness and is permanently miserable at sea, so after the first year their journey takes a new direction and we take over with hopefully better luck! I made my first foray into the Caribbean to check her out (the boat!) in Martinique and made an offer within an hour of being on board. You just know when you’re on the right boat, it just speaks to you! Laura and I went over some really nice boats in Florida but we just knew they weren’t right for us. While I was in Martinique Laura and the girls took off for the UK for a much needed catch-up with family and friends, it kind of sucks they haven’t seen our new home yet but we already knew she was the one before we all parted ways.

The last couple of weeks has been all about the not so fun part of boat ownership, transferring funds, organising insurance, registration etc etc. On the positive side there’s no shortage of great bars here and I even went for a shark dive at a beautiful site 1 hour North called Jupiter. There will be a number of shark photos because, well we all need more sharks in our lives right?

Tomorrow I’m off to St Lucia to complete the boat handover and then, with the help of a delivery captain, sail her back to Florida so we can start our trip the way we said we would! Maybe I’ll get some pictures of our new baby to share in the next post.