CruisingNorth AmericaUSA

To the Bahamas….not yet

By December 19, 2010 No Comments

I snuck into Miami before a strong cold front hit the area.  I dropped my anchor on the south side of the Venetian Causeway between Di Lido and Riva Alto islands.  The winds blew up to 30 knots for three days, but I was well protected.  I spent the time biking three miles to Target, getting a haircut, doing laundry, and doing major provisioning at the grocery story across the street from a dingy landing up Collins Canal (VERY handy for the chore).

 On Wednesday I motored five miles in light winds to Dinner Key (Miami’s city hall is located here) to meet up with Sabbaticus and Ultra before they crossed the Gulf Stream early Thursday morning.  I spent two days going to West Marine and Home Depot to get supplies and spares.  When I got everything back I put it all away and cleaned the boat, because on Friday morning Jim & Blieu (they left New Orleans with me in April) and their kids (Racheal who is 14 and JD is 13) arrived for 2 – 2 ½ weeks aboard.  We spent the day getting everybody stowed, going to get the last run of groceries, picking up spares from a Yanmar dealer, and getting a new battery (this time it was for their van).

 We planned to get up at 5am to start our crossing with a predicted south wind of 10-15, but when we got out there we had east southeast wind of 20-25 and the boat was averaging 3.5 knots, so I told them we had to cancel the crossing and I would show them the Florida Keys until the next weather window arrived.  Everyone was ok with this so we went down Biscayne Bay and anchored in a side creek to Angelfish creek so I could show them some cool stuff in the upper keys.

A side note – I added a tour of the boat video to the website on “The Boat” page.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

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