Tavernia - at Blue Waters Marina

A full moon with full moon tides! A low tide now is below the datum, a drain tide.

We wanted to try something different in the trip from Marathon to Miami. The usual stopover is to anchor out in the open at Rodriguez Key. It's okay if it's not too windy out of the east or south. Unfortunately, that's exactly the prevailing winds this time of the year. So with winds predicted out of those directions for the night, we thought we'd try Tavernia. There are several marinas here and we found Blue Waters to be the most inviting. They are in a basin that's completely protected from all directions, a real hurricane hole. The reason most cruisers avoid the area is due to the shallow entrance. We came in a low tide and saw 4.7 ft, just barely enough for us to get in with our 4 ft 9 in keel. With a 3 ft tide, you can chose your time of entry to have plenty of room. Once past the entrance, the depth increases to 10 ft the rest of the way in. There's a community of long term boaters here, many rent a slip for the entire season, some for the year.

Nice picnic area

We plan on being here for another day before continuing our trek north. There's high winds on Tuesday but it calms down for Wednesday, a good day to go north.