Day 111, Year 10: Port of Miami and Biscayne Bay
Date: Thursday, January 29, 2015
Weather: Partly Sunny; Still on the ‘Cool’ Side but Warming Up
Latitude: 25 42 997 N
Longitude: 080 13.701 W
Location: Anchored in Dinner Key Marina Anchorage, Coconut Grove, FL
After ten days in Fort Lauderdale, at 7 am this morning we bid Lake Sylvia farewell. The worry that the marine police would not let us stay there for more than a day or two was all for nothing. It was a lovely anchorage and no one questioned our stay. Thank you, Fort Lauderdale. We made the 7:30 opening of the 17th Street Bridge and by mid-afternoon we were anchored off the Dinner Key Marina mooring field in Biscayne Bay. As we approached Miami, I noticed that the water color had changed. We are now in the land of turquoise water. What this really means is that we are in very shallow water, but the colors are beautiful. Just after entering the Port of Miami inlet we hung a left between Fisher Island and Dodge Island. This is a secondary channel that pleasure boaters must use if there is a cruise ship in port. Mark just assumed that there probably was, so we entered the very busy and industrial Fishermans Channel Inlet. Dodge Island is where all the ships are loaded and there were dredge operations, barges, and shallow water. We went aground once right next to one of the dredges but were able to back off right away. We made it through and just as we started to go under the Rickenbacker Causeway to enter Biscayne Bay we saw more boat traffic. This time instead of dredges and barges it was small racing sailboats. Biscayne Bay was littered with them. I have since learned that we were smack in the middle of the fourth day of racing in the ISAF (International Sailing Federation) Sailing World Cup Miami. We carefully worked our way through the boats and to the channel leading into Dinner Key Marina. In order to get to the area where you can anchor, you have to take the north channel all the way into the marina, hang a left, and then head back out through the south channel and all the way to the end of the Dinner Key Marina mooring field. It was a bit of a jaunt, but once there, anchoring was easy. We launched the dinghy and invited Lee and Lynda to go ashore with us. We had no particular agenda except that Mark and I wanted to walk and I wanted to go to the shopping area called Coco Walk so I could get a photo of the name for our granddaughter Coco. Coco Walk was not as impressive as City Place in West Palm Beach, but we enjoyed the walk there and back. On the way back out to the anchorage, we invited Lee and Lynda to stop by Windbird for sundowners. We talked a bit about tomorrow’s sail to Caesar Creek at the southern end of Elliott Key. Elliott Key is the first of the ‘real’ keys and Caesar Creek is a protected anchorage. If the weather forecast holds as is, we will spend Saturday there riding out 25 knot winds from the East and then continue on Sunday. Caesar Creek is part of Biscayne Bay National Park, so we hope to do a little water and land exploring there.
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| 150129 Day 111 Florida, USA–Port of Miami and Coconut Grove |
