Last post for a while

Ray took a ton of sunset pictures last night, almost like time-
lapsed photography, but I think this was my favorite.

After blogging last night, our friends, old and new, dinghied over just after sunset from their boats anchored just off our starboard stern.  We had a nice visit, and the last minute chipotle dip mix I threw together was a hit.
None of us knew exactly what our plan was for today, except that we would see what we thought at different places along the way.  We all departed Tarpon Basin around 7:00 a.m.  It was rather uneventful travel other than shallow water at times, but everyone made it through.

Our friends on their way over via dinghy.

It wasn't quite 11:00 a.m. when we were near Lignumvitae Key where we mentioned the possibility of stopping there to tie up to a mooring ball.  It seemed kind of early for that, and Matt on "Sophia Jean" mentioned an anchorage at the northwestern end of Marathon near Island Fish Company that they had anchored at before.  He really enticed us when he said then we could do about a mile walk to Sparky's from there and get their 25 cent happy hour shrimp and wings.  That made our decision to keep going.
The only real mentionable event after that was that a crab fishing boat came plowing between us and "Byrd Ketcher", with not a whole lot of room, for no apparent reason.  Especially since he had just passed us going the other way not one minute earlier.  I don't know what we did to piss him off, but of course it toppled the Christmas Tree again.  So there was not one travel day that it did not fall over.

This is probably how close together we were when that
crab boat came between us.  Our friends got a little help
from the wind today.

Once we were near our intended anchorage, "Sophia Jean" and "Byrd Ketcher" decided they would just keep going on into Boot Key Harbor.  We had already discussed that we would have an approximate 5:30 p.m. arrival time there, very close to sun down.  They were okay with that as they were going to just pick up mooring balls.  We were not sure of docking that late on top of a long travel day, so we turned off toward the anchorage, getting as much description from Matt as we could.
We found our way just fine and Matt's instructions were spot on.  We tucked a little farther to the northeast trying to get some more wind protection.  It did not seem that windy with it behind us all day, but once we turned we were skeptical on being comfortable.  We dropped anchor, but not for long when we felt like we were already sliding and the boat was still rocking quite a bit.
We continued on taking an even closer inside route near the Gulf shore all the way around Marathon.  We were discussing the option of cutting off about five miles of travel if we went under the Seven Mile Bridge at Knights Key Channel where there is only 19 feet of charted clearance.  We thought that would be funny to end up in front of "Sophia Jean" and "Byrd Ketcher" because as sailboaters, they have to go under the Seven Mile Bridge at Moser Channel to get enough vertical clearance.  We weren't going to tell them when we heard them discussing the exact same thing for us on the VHF radio, so we told them that was our intention.  Another boater in Boot Key Harbor heard our discussion and graciously cautioned us on how strong the current can be in Knights Key Channel and that we did not want to end up going through it sideways.  His local knowledge scared us enough to decide against that idea.  Ray said it was too late in the day for a screw up like that.  I asked what time of day was good for a screw up like that?
"Sophia Jean" and "Byrd Ketcher" were through Moser Channel and in the Atlantic a good bit ahead of us and talking on the VHF about how windy and rough it was.  We were dreading the sounds of that and wondering if maybe we should have just tried Knights Key Channel, but we were past it.  Once we were out there though, we agreed that the 25 mile per hour winds were pretty stiff on the nose, but that we had been in waves a lot worse than that through here before.  It was a bit of a bumpy ride into Boot Key Harbor and we were still concerned with docking in these winds.  We decided we would just pick up a mooring ball for the night too if we were not comfortable with docking.
By the time we got to Sombrero Dockside though around 5:30 p.m. with the sunset behind us, there was barely a breeze.  So even with our huge audience of friends, we docked just fine.  Getting the dinghy and motor down though was quite an ordeal which it never had been before.  That just reaffirmed Ray's desire to get a better set-up for hauling our dinghy and new heavier motor before we leave in the Spring.  That being said, I will most likely not be blogging our day-to-day activities while here.  Everyone is invited to come see it for themselves though, just not all at one time.  Please feel free to give us a call when you might like to come.  Our guest schedule fills up more and more the more people come visit us and realize why we love it here.
We were tired after a long day of 66 miles, however some of us still decided to go to the Hurricane to listen to The Doerfels and eat pizza until the wee hours of the morning, but it was worth it!

Early departure

There really was no reason for our departure about 15 minutes earlier than usual this morning except that we were ready and we mentioned how flat the water was.  I took a nice picture of the sun coming up behind us as we left Boca Chita.  You'll have to check out Facebook for that one.  That did not last long however when we saw rain moving in.  There was actually a worse squall than this behind us.  It did eventually catch up to us, but did not end up being as bad as it looked as far as rain, but it did bring some increase winds which kicked up the waves in Biscayne Bay.  Today was a much more uncomfortable roll on the stern quarter than yesterday and would call this more of a moderate chop in Biscayne Bay.
The other bays were better, especially the farther we kept going.  We dropped anchor in Tarpon Basin just before 1:00 p.m.  We are tucked into the northeast corner this time trying to get wind protection as they were higher than originally predicted today.
Just as I am writing this, friends that we saw in Ft. Lauderdale on "Byrd Ketcher" are attempting to raft up with other new arrivals on "Sofia Jean", whom we got introduced to by Kurt and Sharon on "Byrd Ketcher" while in Ft. Lauderdale, here in the same vicinity.

Decreased winds?

The first few pictures are from our time in Ft. Lauderdale exploring by dinghy while we could.  Actually they are all from a 17 mile dinghy ride we took.

Okay, can't say we ever saw one of these before.

If you ever wonder how vehicles get overseas.  Look closely in the middle.



We do believe this to be the largest private vessel we have ever seen.  Notice the three story building beside it.

Leaving the New River.

We got things accomplished while waiting out the winds in Ft. Lauderdale, like taking Spike to the vet to get his overdue teeth cleaning.  That was an adventure in itself with a two day ordeal via bicycle, and of course it would rain almost every time.  Nevertheless, we finally left the New River this morning around 7:00 a.m. under the premise that the winds were decreased a whole five miles per hour.  We figured if we did not leave soon, we might never get out of there with these incessant winds.  It was a fairly uneventful cruise through Miami with a couple of bridges needing to be opened for us.  One of them was the Broad Causeway Bridge in which only the west span of the bascule bridge was able to be raised.  It looked narrow to us and mentioned how it must be for larger vessels.We were pleased with Biscayne Bay.  It was predicted to be a light to moderate chop.  If this was a moderate chop, I'll take it.  It was not bad at all with almost a following sea on the stern quarter.
It was during this time that I got a text saying they were glad they saw on our Spot tracker that we were through the Broad Causeway Bridge.  Come to find out, yesterday the large motor yacht "Rockstar" that we saw being towed out of the New River while we went on a beer run via bicycle between rains, had the east span of that bridge fall on it while it was being towed through!  You can probably get that $20 million yacht at a discounted price now.  If you are real interested, you can probably find this story on Yahoo.
Anyway, we continued on to Boca Chita.  Once again one of our favorite spots that we got introduced to last spring.  It is a National Park that was previously intended to be a private island for a wealthy entrepreneur back in the 1920's until his wife was injured on the island and died as a result.  Therefore, the only things on the island are the basin which can probably hold at least 30 boats tied to the wall with plenty of cleats, a decorative rock wall, a pavilion that was to entertain guests on original plans, a lighthouse, a maintenance building (as they keep the grounds nicely manicured), picnic tables, charcoal grills, and restrooms with no sinks.  There is no water available on the island except to flush the toilets.  It seems so surreal to be so primitive, yet so close to Miami.


"Lady J"

Upon our arrival there was one sailing catamaran already there, "Lady J", whom we have passed recently.  There was another sailing catamaran of the same kind anchored outside of the park when we arrived, but came and tied up soon after our arrival.  Just before dark, a fourth vessel came into the harbor, also being a Silverton.  Thought that was kind of ironic to have two pairs of the same boats.  After dark a small run about came and spent the night also.

Boca Chita sunset