Day 378 - Miami

It is now 6:00 in the morning. Our ship has been waiting for high tide outside the port of Miami for a while already. The crew emptied the ballast tanks to lift the body. The captain explained that the difference of one foot would shorten our wait time by 2 hours.

Around noon, we were authorized to proceed. The ship followed a long, narrow channel through the downtown area, passing under several draw bridges until we reached the docking site of the Trans Caribbean Line. The other two ships, the Mar Freeze and Ultra Freeze, were already docked there.

Our campers were unloaded and smiled with solid ground under the wheels again! Our engine started beautifully, but the wheels wouldn’t move. It turned out that the brake drums were entirely rusted and stuck to the brake pads (from the exposure to seawater). I had to remove the wheels and gently pound the drums with a hammer to separate them from the brakes.

We spent an additional night in our ship cabins. It was relentlessly hot and humid, with no breeze.Read more