Bellatrix

23 November 2015

Fort Lauderdale, FL

After Rivera Beach we moved south, we anchored in Lantana near the bridge and continued the next day through Del Ray and Boca Raton. Through here and into Fort Lauderdale are beautiful homes and large motor yachts. We anchored in Sunrise Bay for the night and the next day sailed out of Port Everglades.

We sailed the ocean to Miami. The day was glorious, light wind and bountiful sunshine. We left the harbor and entered the ocean we noticed a submarine. It was doing surface maneuvers, we had difficulty knowing which direction it was going until a police boat came by an told us we needed to go east to sea two miles.

As we enter Governor’s Cut, the entrance to Miami harbor, we were followed by a huge container ship and struggled to stay out of it’s way. We were hailed by a Miami Police boat who told us we could not enter through the main cut because of the many cruise ship’s departing and we had to take the long way around. The huge container ship had passed us by then and we followed it until it reached the terminal and watched it be turned in the basin. One massive tug attached a line to the stern of the ship and another was at its bow. The one behind reversed its engines and pulled right as the tug on the bow pushed. It was amazing watching the big thing be turned in its own length. Powerful tugs. Smaller craft passed between it and the terminal bulkhead as we decided to wait and watch.

We anchored between Miami and South Beach. Saturday we’re off to South Beach we go, well… not as nice as we were lead to believe. Ocean City, Maryland is better. We later heard the nicer area is further north. We had a little rain so we had dinner at a Turkish Restaurant which was good and back to the boat. Sunday we went to the Miami Yacht Club for lunch and football. Monday we took the dink to the Miami side and again were not impressed, a large city, not many “local” bars. It does have an area very much like Harborplace, downtown Baltimore.Again, we may have been to far south in the downtown area.

Done with Miami, we left for Key Biscayne. We anchored in No Name Harbor, a state park. It is very protected from weather from all directions. They have free pumpouts but no water. We had to get water at the dockside restaurant at $0.25 per gallon which they time on a stopwatch at 6 gallons per minute, funny. It seemed funny to us to have the restaurant manager standing on a deck timing us with his iPhone.

Wednesday we used the dink to go out to “Stiltsville”, seven structures built on stilts about a mile out between ocean and bay. Apparently began in the 1930’s started to circumvent laws, once the home of clubs, illegal liquor, gambling and prostitution. Many of the structures have succumbed to storms but 7 still remain. They are gayly colored and some are available for rental from the park for weddings and parties. We then went into the many canals on Key Biscayne, the average income is one million dollars per year, once home to President Nixon’s southern White House, beautiful homes. Back to the boat, Robin did laundry at the state park, yes they actually had one washer and dryer in a park. In the morning, a large dolphin chased bait fish around and under the dink and right at the back of the boat. Very exciting since it was so very close and Bella was sitting in the dink.

We left Biscayne with the intent of going to Key Largo but after checking the weather we decided to head back north since weather conditions were perfect for a northerly sail. We have to be back at Stuart for the rudder repair by November 30th. We have to go out into the ocean between Miami and Lauderdale because of a bridge we can’t pass under. We had favorable winds and sailed back to Governor’s Cut, Port Everglades and anchored in Lake Sylvia in Lauderdale. The Gulf Stream is close to shore here and between good wind and the gulf we averaged almost 8 knots. We stayed here last year waiting to cross to the Bahamas. Mark on “Sarafina” came, we had buddy boated with him on the ICW for a while and had cocktails.

We spent the last few days shopping, more boat supplies including alcohol, and some provisions. We went to the movies to see “Spector”, the new Bond flick and watched the Raven’s against St. Louis yesterday. We will grocery shop for Thanksgiving fixin’s today and start back toward Stuart tomorrow. Gorgeous morning here today, feels like fall, a cold front and only 76 degrees……sounds pretty good to our friends north but cool to Skip.