A splash and dash according to pilots is when they run out of fuel and need to land to refuel! I did two in two days one in a boat and one in an airplane!

Arriving in Florida late on monday night from the UK very tired I found that as I had thought Yeoman had not unloaded and I was taking her off the ship that had brought her from Southampton. I stayed with my friend Steffi and in the morning we headed up to West Palm Beach and Cracker Boy Boatworks. Lots of security to get onto the port including fingerprinting and picture taking.

The forecasted 25-30 knot winds made things interesting as the boat was unloaded to weather of the tanker so we were plastered against the side of the tanker and combined with the throttle cable being broken (I had a new one to replace it but the reason for the cable breaking meant we needed another part as well) we asked for a tow from Towboat US.

They hip towed us to the haul out at Cracker Boy and were very good about it the guy knew his boat – sometimes they don’t so I was a little worried.

After hauling out, pressure washing all the salt off of her deck and hull I crawled around inside for 4 hours getting a to do list and question list going as I haven’t seen her in 18 months.

Christmas eve is not a time to fly needless to say the airport was packed at Fort Lauderdale and sadly there were 4 wrecks in the airport area with one car turned over. The flight from Fort Lauderdale to Philidelphia was on time and uneventful. However, we left Philidephia late and completely full and then the pilot announced we were running out of fuel due to un forcasted 155mph headwinds and would have to stop at Salt Lake city for a Splash and Dash. Amazingly it took the 15 minutes they said it would and we arrived only 2.5 hours late into SFO. I was amazed at how the passengers treated the flight attendants like personal servents with the call buttons being pressed continuously! US Airways is not a great airline – no inflight entertainment (not even music), even water has to be purchased and box meals for $7 each. I felt bad to for the flight attendants having to deal with upset people for 9 hours in the plane!

Merry Christmas everyone

Christmas display in Lauderdale – the kid who lives there says they start putting lights up in September! Even their sportsfishing boat behind their house is covered in lights.