The Missing Days to Miami

Winds from the south are not attractive for going south, especially on an open ocean passage. After waiting several days for better winds in Lake Worth, getting with friends Otto and Mimi, and watching the Super Bowl, we moved five miles south to anchor just inside Lake Worth inlet. At dawn's earliest light on Tuesday, we raised our anchor, and found our inlet filled with a returning cruise ship.

After 10 hours of sailing and motor sailing south along the coast of Florida, still with some adverse wind and wave, we approached Miami. Note the unused fishing pole -- too rough to manage the fishing process.

At dusk, we set our anchor just inside Government Cut, for a peaceful, secure evening and this view of the Miami skyline in the morning.
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Our peaceful anchorage featured a visiting flotilla of floating Portuguese Man of War jellyfish looking like plastic baggies drifting by in the morning light.

But all is not peace and light. The bottom held a dark side -- this large, heavy steel cable that got to know our anchor during the night. 

At first, we could not lift this cable with our winch. We tried pulling from different directions, with the boat in reverse and forward, to no avail. We must have pulled it out of the mud, because finally we were able raise the anchor and cable. At this point the solution was simple: pass a line under the cable, tie it to a forward cleat, drop the anchor from under the suspended cable, release the line and we're free. We developed this technique in St. Augustine a few years ago, when we pulled up a large, old, heavy oyster encrusted fisherman anchor with our anchor chain wrapped around it four times.

Free at last, we passed through the Port of Miami to the imposing waterfront of Miami itself.

If Miami isn't called the City by the Sea, it should be ----

We had originally planned to anchor near Miami Beach to explore that area. However, with ever worsening news about Bobbie's father's condition, we decided to stage ourselves for better access to Miami's airport, and proceeded to Coconut Grove. Here we are in what has been described as one of the largest marinas in the country.

At home in the mooring field on a foggy morning, awaiting the future.

 

Smoke and I are still in Miami while Bobbie readies her dad for transition to a nursing home.  He is in the stages of the end of life and it is very sad.