4/2/2022 Escaping the Miami madness, Maule Lake

We should have thought this one out before leaving Miami and heading up the ICW.  It was Saturday, it was still Spring Break in south Florida.  We had no idea we were going to have to dodge thousands of boats, large yachts, small center consoles, large fishing boats, even racing catamarans in the middle of the channel.  I was amazed and a bit stressed.  Ed was fine, calm at the wheel but had to stay on extreme guard for the whole day, boats were roaring past us at such close proximity it seemed like we were invisible to them, and we probably were. 

There were 10-12 racing catamarans zipping back and forth between the markers, but cool to watch

One small span under the bridge with boats zipping through from both ways

A blow-up of the picture will show hundreds of boats along a sandbar.  This went on and on until well past Ft. Lauderdale

A lovely condo, complete with palm trees on the top floor

Miami bustling with spring breakers, even early in the morning

How many babes can you fit on a bow of a boat?

Brickell Point, downtown Miami

Even the REALLY large yachts do the sandbars

Another shot of the boats at the sandbar

The next challenge to overcome was the Julia Tuttle fixed bridge.  As noted once before it is always a challenge for us.  The height of the bridge is right at the height of our mast.  We managed to approach the bridge at mid to low tide this time, and alas, we had a few inches to spare! Whew! We got under once again. 

Haulover Inlet Lighthouse

We got a tip from fellow cruisers about Maule Lake, just north of  Haulover Inlet, Maule Lake.  What a great spot that was!  We followed the rather narrow channel between condominiums and the water opened up to a large lake with Condominiums all around it, except for a small area of woods.  A storm was brewing and we were tired, so we were happy to find this spot with lots of deep enough water to anchor.  We set the anchor, had dinner and watched a pretty sunset through the tall condos.  We set the anchor drag alarm and turned in early.  

As par for the course, at 2:00 am the wind picked up drastically, so quickly that the boat rocked hard.  The wind changed direction and the drag alarm went off, telling Ed to go topside and check things out.  It was raining and blowing hard.  Ed watched the storm for a few minutes, as he always does, when he heard a roar in the distance.  It sounded like a train and immediately started thinking tornado.  He was about to wake me when he heard a train horn.  OH YEAH!   We were no longer in the keys and it really was a freight train, not a tornado!! We were apparently closer to shore than we thought. The storm passed over without further incident.  

The following morning we went dinghy exploring.  The small area of wooded land was part of the Oleta State Park, which we had explored previously when anchoring by the FIU campus.  We spent most of the morning in the dinghy, snapping photos of birds and wildlife and exploring the mangrove shoreline. 

Look close, Iguana!

A look at the narrow channel as we left the anchorage

Maule Lake proved to be a great stop, we relaxed and were ready to move on.  Breath in, breath out and move on to manage the bridges!

 

3/29/2022 No Name Harbor

Well, the wind has been relentless. We can’t stay here forever…or can we? No... hurricane season will be upon us soon, so must head back to the mainland. We did see a window coming up on the weekend of 4/1/22 and we made our way up to Key Biscayne. We gave ourselves time to go into town and reprovision.  Ed made a plan to leave on Friday afternoon around 2:00 pm and sail up along the coast to St. Lucie Inlet. We had a few days to wait it out here, outside No Name Harbor. It was an interesting place, lots of people and boats to watch. 

A couple of nice sailboats moving about in the anchorage

The Miami skyline was a nice backdrop for a few days

We positioned ourselves at the harbor to allow us an easy exit and got ready.  The winds were 15-20kts, but our Wind Alert app showed them calming down by late afternoon and staying in the low teens from the South and Southeast.  The seas were forecast to be calm. 

This is a shot from the GPS showing how we have been swinging on the anchor, wind wind wind!

And then the weather changed and we lost our nice weather window.  I am not comfortable in the rough seas (I get a little seasick), so Ed made the command decision to just go back up the ICW and deal with all the doggone bridges.  We were getting tired of Miami and its madness and like we said earlier, we can't stay here forever.  Time to go. 

 

3/23/2022 Thursday Cove

 We left Tarpon Basin after taking care of business.  We weighed anchor at 2:30 pm with winds 14 kts out of the SSE with forecast to pick up during the night (always at night it seems).  We decided to find our protective anchorage in Thursday Cove.  We have anchored there in the past and was a perfect spot for the SE winds.  We've only anchored here overnight on our way and hadn't had an opportunity to explore the mangrove coastline, so we decided to stay a couple of nights instead of rushing out.  

Just when you think you'll get the same old sunrise....

Nice clear water along the shoreline, but not as blue

Manatee...way over there

Frigatebird overhead

Sunset over the mainland

3/19/22. Back to Tarpon Basin

 It’s back to Tarpon Basin to ride out another big blow and another trip to the grocery store. We motor sailed back up the channel.  We do a lot of running around the bay, but even then, it's relaxing to be practically alone in this vast space.  We rarely encounter another boat and if we do, it's another cruising sailboat enjoying the same things we are.  The winds were fair for now, 15-20 kts out of the SE.  The upcoming Saturday evening/Sunday morning wind forecast was for 20-25 kts with gusts 28-30.  

The waters were once again clear and several colors of blue.  Here you can see the deeper water in the channel. It should be easy to stay between the red and green markers!  We got back to our usual spot in the anchorage around 2:30 pm and relaxed a bit before the breeze picked up.  

Rick re-joined us and asked Ed to help him dock at Gilbert's to get fuel and water.  Ed didn't mind.  By Sunday morning the winds had died down a bit, enough to go early to Gilberts in Wind Gypsy and later get to Publix for re-provisioning.  

Sunday morning calm

Sunrise over Key Largo

This little guy is so used to people coming off their dinghy at the landing, he didn't even scurry off

He seemed to enjoy the company

Re-provisioning all done, back to the boat for a good night's sleep.  Our plan is be here Wednesday, as it's "Pump-Out Day" and Thursday head back North.  Yes, I mean back to the mainland.  We'll do a couple more "day trips" around the bay until then and say good-bye to the aqua waters for this season.  We'll make our way slowly North, exploring new places to anchor and watch for our weather window to go "outside" (in the Atlantic) from Cape Florida to St. Lucie Inlet.  We don't have to be back to Stuart until May, so we will continue our cruising season North of Stuart along the Indian River for a month.  

I

3/22/2022 Good-bye to the Keys for this season. No words, just a few pictures of my favorite sights

 

3/25/2022 Barnes Sound

We also usually go right through the Barnes Sound and Card Sound without stopping before heading North into Biscayne Bay.  In times past, the wind was always blowing hard as we pounded into it. The winds today however were out of the south and southwest, giving us a nice run through Jewfish Creek and across Barnes Sound. We had spotted a nice looking spot to anchor just north of the Card Sound Bridge but as we approached we realized underwater cable lines were in the vicinity and we just didn’t like the looks of the spot. So we turned around and found a great spot on the southeast side of the bridge. It was nicely tucked into the shoreline, away from the channel. The coastline offered great dinghy and/or kayak exploring opportunities.

 

We anchored here for a night and then found an even better looking spot the next day, around the corner outside Steamboat Creek. We decided to hang out here for a few days as we waited for a good weather window to go up the coast from Biscayne Bay to the St. Lucie Inlet. It would be much more enjoyable than hanging out by No Name Harbor.

      Ready to start our day of exploration

We brought our garbage bag, thinking we may be able to dispose of it at the kayak landing area. We came across a couple of garbage cans, strategically placed by a landing, along the side of Card Sound Rd. It’s pretty great for Monroe County to make available garbage cans like this, I hope it helps to keep people from littering.

 

There was even a great spot to pull a dinghy up!

We spent most of the morning in the dinghy, some parts were shallow enough to have to walk the dinghy through the skinny parts. We love having this hard shell dinghy rather than an inflatable, we would never be able to explore like we do with a boat that could pop if we ran it up again mangrove roots, oyster beds etc.

Since we were paddling and not using the motor, we were able to sneak up on this beautiful heron. He was way up the creek from us, but I had the telephoto lens on the camera and was able to catch a few shots of him before he realized we were there.

The mangrove shoreline 

Cormorants everywhere

From a distance it took us some time to figure out what this was in the trees. Can you tell? It was a highway cone, stuck on a tree branch, perhaps marking an obscure entrance to a small creek

Osprey with his dinner

The mangrove roots had a totally different plant growing from it under water, I was so amazed I had to get a picture. Nature is truly remarkable.

Frigate bird in flight, fishing

Back on Manatee and the rest of the day we just watched the magnificent skies.