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Dan, Stella (our beagle) and I went for a dinghy ride up the Dania Cutoff Canal on a perfect sunny afternoon. We were looking for monkeys and iguanas, but didn't find any. We made our way back through the canal to where it meets up with the New River, and we continued east out the river, past Yacht Haven (one of my favorite places because it's a trailer park with a marina on multi-million dollar waterfront property—the irony is beautiful!), all the way to the I-95 bridge. We were thinking about continuing on out the river and completing the circle, but decided to turn around since it was getting late.

If you've even been up the New River, you know what it's like. More boats than you can imagine. Boat yards, marinas, storage facilities, boats behind peoples' houses, boats in all stages of disrepair and decay. That's one of the reasons why I will always love Fort Lauderdale. Thousands of boats.

Anyway, we turned around just east of the 95 bridge, and right as we were passing beneath the west span, I hit a submerged plank with the prop. The shear-pin gave out, and the only forward motion we were able to make was from the current. We'd prepared ahead for things like this—we had cell phones and cash with us, and Dan rowed the dink to the nearest marina, Jackson's Marine Center, on the north side of the New River.

We lucked into a cab, since there was already one on the way to the marina with a fare (a group of excited looking men with suitcases probably taking delivery of someone's new boat). The cab waited for us (meter ticking...) while we pulled the dink out of the water and hauled it out to the gate, Stella in tow. The dockmaster was leaving for the night, and we wouldn't be able to get back into the marina once we cane back with Dan's truck to pick up the dinghy.

On the way out of the marina, something flashed in the corner of my eye. Amidst a sea of hurricane-damaged and repossessed boats, penned in by a barbed wire fence, Divi Divi's plain stern grinned at me. "Oh my god! It's your boat," I said, scaring the cabbie to a stop. "Over there."

Dan's head spun around and we both took in the mess: snarled rigging, cracked fiberglass, dull portholes. "Are you sure?" Dan said.

"Yes, I saw the name." Divi Divi had washed ashore in Hurricane Wilma, and she'd been totaled by Dan's insurance company. National Marine Liquidators hauled her away from a small boatyard in North Miami back in November, and that had been the last either of us had seen of her.

The cabbie looked at us, impatient, and I told him to go on. We'd have time to stop by on the way back when we came to pick up the dink. Once we were out of the cab and on our way back with the truck, I ventured to say out loud what I'd been thinking. "Don't you think that's too coincidental?" I said. "I mean, out of all the marinas in Fort Lauderdale, the dinghy breaks right in front of the same marina were Divi Divi is."

"I guess," Dan said.

"The boat wanted you to find her," I said.

"Maybe."

I knew it was true. Of all the boats I've known, Divi Divi had one of the strongest personalities. It took a little time and lots of love before she warmed up to me, but she eventually did. Actually, I remember the exact moment when I knew things would be okay between Divi Divi and me. I'd just spent hours cleaning her, from bilge to bow, and she promised me that she'd get us safely to the Bahamas and back.

And she did, even though we spent the better part of that particular trip holed up in Bimini waiting for Hurricane Katrina to pass. But she was always Dan's girl, and she never really got over it when he left her and moved aboard Short Story with me. She wouldn't let me sleep the first couple of times Dan and I went sailing on her. She managed to get lines and floats tangled in her prop whenever I was at the helm. When she finally decided that she and I could get along, our time was cut short by Wilma.

We couldn't get to her through the barbed wire, but we stopped and looked, climbing over the dinghy, which sat in the bed of the truck, to get a better view. She didn't seem all that far gone—somebody with a lot of spare time and money would be able to fix her up. I hoped someone would. Soon.

Note: If you enjoyed this, keep an eye out for Melanie's Short Story column in Cruising World, starting with the September 2006 issue.