Miami – At Marine Stadium at anchor – a Fifty mile sail!

We left before sunrise - arrrgh

All the wind and wave gods were with us today. After witnessing a sunrise, we set out at 7:00 am, a record for us. There was a 12 to 15 kt wind out of the northeast which was perfect for sailing north. We kept the relative wind at around 60 degrees and powered forward all day except for a little tension at Caesar’s Creek where we saw 5.2 ft even though we had a 1.4 ft tide with us! So we threaded our way through the creek that took us from the ocean side to the Bay of Biscayne where the water was flat but we still had the wind.

Well, I did snap a photo later on of the sunrise

However, I am coming to the conclusion that I need to have the bottom of the boat scrubbed by a diver. My usual cruising speed at 2300 rpm under power is 7.3 kts but now it’s only 6.8 kts! I’m sure I’m using the same if not more fuel for the same rpm so it computes to not be very economical to continue to run the boat like this. The bottom was fine all the way down to Key West but sitting in at a dock in the warm waters of Key West for a month grew a lot of stuff, apparently. Of course towing a dinghy doesn’t help and we’re thinking of installing davits to keep the dinghy out of the water during none use.

The Miami skyline at night is gorgeous

We’re anchored in Marine Stadium anchorage which used to be an arena for water sports but a hurricane in the 80’s did it in. Now it’s a wreak but the anchorage is fine and is used by a lot of boats going and coming down the ICW. With a nearby beach, it’s perfect for us with Hoolie. We’ll stay and watch for a weather window to reach Ft Lauderdale since we have to go outside (via the ocean), we can’t use the ICW for the Miami to Ft Lauderdale stretch due to one low bridge at 56 ft.