continued
We sailed based Miami Beach and Miami. The coastline is full of high rise hotels and condos that have cropped up over the years as the ‘deep pocketed’ have constructed places to hang their fancy hats. We made good time to the Miami Inlet, Government Cut, and headed in back on the ICW for a short seven miles into Biscayne Bay.
To cross to the Bahamas, we need calm winds out of the south, west or south west. Unfortunately, as of Sunday afternoon, the weather reports do not look favorable for crossing to the Bahamas. The strong northeaster has hung in here with no break in the weather, according to forecasts, through Wednesday. We may have a window to cross on Thursday but it will depend on the winds. Until then, we will sit here in Key Biscayne and wait for a good weather day.
Since the weather was not cooperating for a crossing over to the Bahamas, we decided to leave the yacht club in Key Biscayne and explore the nearby islands. We headed to Elliot Key which sits on the edge of the Biscayne National Park, which is a series of islands surrounded by an underwater reef with beautiful marine life to view. We picked up a mooring in the park and decided to explore the reef. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the seas were a bit choppy and the water slightly murky. We could still see the bottom in about 12 feet of water. Monica, the brave one, got into her snorkel gear and decided to take the plunge. Just as she was stepping off the ladder from the boat, a few big jelly fish floated by towards her. She reluctantly boarded the boat and thought better of snorkeling.
Tuesday late afternoon we headed back to the yacht club in Key Biscayne where we decided to wait for better weather to cross.
Our weather window had arrived. We decided to leave to cross as the winds were forecasted to be calm all day and through the night, blowing 10 to 15 out of the northwest. Not the perfect conditions, but certainly better. Bill Nagley, an experienced sailor and very good friend, will plan to join us this evening. We will have an early dinner, get a few hours sleep and plan to depart around midnight putting us into the Bahamas mid morning on Thursday, Jan. 15.
Unfortunately, we did not leave as planned on Wed. Jan. 14. We woke at midnight to winds howling at 20 to 25 knots. We waited until 2:00 a.m. hoping the winds would subside, but they did not. We cancelled the crossing and elected to wait for a better forecast. We woke Thursday morning and checked out the next 72 hour forecast online. It did not look good. We decided to wait until we had a better forecast which was looking like sometime the following week.
Bill headed back to St. Petersburg on Friday. He would go back home and wait for us to let him know when we expected to cross. Our plan was to speak with him daily and let him know.
Coconut Grove, FL - MM - 1091 - Sat through Tues Jan 17 through Jan 20
We decided to explore some of the other areas as long as we were waiting. We sailed across Biscayne Bay to Coconut Grove where we stayed at the Coral Reef Yacht Club. It was a good move as it gave us a change of scenery, and the opportunity to check out Coconut Grove, a very nice spot.
Tony was down with a bad cold, which he weathered in bed. There he stayed for several days. Monica and I set out to explore and sight see. The shops in Coconut Grove were close to the yacht club, within walking distance, and the weather was perfect, in the high 70's, so walk we did. We visited the shops and did some window shopping and real shopping, picking up some 'after the holiday' bargains. We spotted an AMC movie theatre. Since it's a rare treat we get to see a movie, I promised Monica we would go on Sunday. We ended up seeing Peter Pan and we both enjoyed it.
By Monday Tony was much better and we all went out and walked and explored the area more. All in all our stay here was very pleasant. We were happy for the diversion and figured it wasn't such a bad thing for the trip to the Bahamas to be postponed.
The weather forecasts were shaping up to appear as though the next window was going to be Wed., Jan. 21. We'll keep our fingers crossed and hope we are able to cross over to the Bahamas on Wed night.
Please see 'The Bahamas' page for our continued travels.