Marine Stadium at Miami - at anchor

The world comes here to practice

We scattered chicken bones we found along the beach on the floor of the cockpit and divined the weather for Saturday. It's about as accurate as NOAA! The chicken bones and NOAA both agree that Saturday is a good day for going south, at least using the inside passage to Caesar's Creek. Both of these techniques are only slightly more reliable than flipping a coin! So when we get up in the morning, look up at the sky (wind, rain. do a dance?) and we'll finally decide on whether we go or not. You may conclude we have lost some faith in NOAA - and you would be right. Oh well, we'll use what works, if anything.

Not all boats make the grade...

Caesar's Creek has a ranger station with a dinghy dock so it's very convenient for dog relief, a requirement for us. Once again we'll be coming in on the highest tide and gliding through (we hope!) with inches to spare. When we see 5 ft on the depth meter (as we have in the past here), we have 3 inches of leeway under the keel! It's a tense few moments until we pass over the bar and into deeper water. So far on four passages, we haven't hit bottom.

Changing tacks

The Marine Stadium was home again to lots of sailing sleds. They're pretty to watch. It seems they are on the edge of disaster most of the time. Canada, US and Norway were represented today. We'll say goodbye Saturday morning, going south!