Tuesday March 29: Miami!

It's been a good two days of travel. Light winds, partly cloudy and smooth waters.

Sixty miles to Barnes Sound and then an additional fifty miles to an anchorage just north of Miami.

We left Banana Bay around 9 yesterday morning. It's always nice when the friends around come to see us off - complete with hugs and goodbye's until next year (although we hope to see several on the way north or once in the north!).

It really was a nice day to travel with the light south winds just off the bow.

It was nice being back in a travel mode even though it was a long couple of first days.

The dolphins are back!! First time in a while that they have come to the bow wave. Two this time - staying for just a few minutes. I think they get bored because we don't travel very fast!

The usual sights along the way - complete with the cormorants lining the cuts through the shallow areas. Each has it's own little perch,

Not sure what these stakes are for but the birds sure do like them!

And they also love boats which are sitting on sand bars :-) I think this boat has been there for quite some time ....

So we anchored last night in Barnes Sound - just north of the Jewfish Creek Bridge.

You know - go past the entrance marker, make a right turn and drop the anchor (the red dot on picture left). Perfect. Not a boat for miles!

And then there was. After dark. I'm hearing a boat - why does it sound so close? Are the pirates arriving? I see a bright light. And then I hear an anchor chain being dropped. REALLY?? There must be a gazillion miles of open water for a place to anchor. Does this guy really need to anchor 50 yards from us?

Very strange but I guess they thought since we were anchored and holding it must be a good place to be!



At least we had a quiet time before being invaded. While we were traveling, Steve had made deviled eggs for an appetizer so on the flybridge with wine and eggs. Seems like a strange combination but it was quite good!

My camera is still stuck on the "smile detection" setting and just takes a picture itself when it "sees" that someone is smiling. Makes for some funny pictures but wouldn't let me do a timed pic. One of these days I need to get the book out for that camera ....




The storm clouds went around us last night and the wind died down. Quite a pleasant night - except for worrying about the pirates anchored next to us.

Kept waiting to be boarded in the middle of the night ....

In the morning when we could actually see the boat, it turns out it was a trawler that was sitting at the dock at one of the marina's in Jewfish Creek. Glad it wasn't really pirates :-)

The farther north we went today on Biscayne Bay the more we were reminded that we were approaching big boat country.

This cruiser buzzed by us - seems he was traveling at least 20 mph. Beautiful boat - almost no wake.

Small by comparison of what we'll see the next few days though.

Miami skyline

Eventually Miami came into view along with the storms that seemed to be moving east at leisurely speed. Good for us as we were able to keep ahead of them.

There were some really fun cloud formations though and we were fortunate enough to make it to our anchorage before the storms moved in.

Turns out the weather was a non-issue. Some wind but no major blows or rains









We had anchored in a very protected cove just west of the very popular sand bar by Haulover Canal in North Miami.

Perfect :-)

Tomorrow: on to Hollywood for a couple of days. One of our favorite marinas!