Back to "Civilization"

What a change in our scenery as we leave the Keys and head up into what I described in the last post as “civilization.” We left Rodriguez Key and moved up Hawk Channel to No Name Harbor in the state park on Key Biscayne. In traveling that route, we managed to get what will likely be our last views of the beautiful water we've come to almost take for granted. The lighthouse at the south end of Key Biscayne welcomed us to the Miami area. We spent a day at the park walking and biking the trails. Our travels took us to one of the beaches there, so we stopped and Sandra went in for a short swim. There were lots of people there and others who took advantage of the people.

This racoon successfully begs a treat from a beach goer.

We wanted to get out of No Name Harbor before the weekend and plan to plant ourselves until Monday. The weekend traffic in the harbor can be crazy and traveling on the ICW during the weekend can also be very unpleasant. We decided to anchor in Miami Beach within walking distance of South Beach. Our first spot looked good, but the police told us it would be unsafe on the weekend with drinking boaters out after dark, so we were told to move. The next attempt hopefully will prove to be OK. We've not been told to move yet. We anchored here once before without incident. We do know that the weekend will be rocky. Already at 7:30 this morning, a boat went by with a big wake - enough to knock our TV on the floor and break the antenna cord. The TV still appears to work, but we'll have to find a new cord for it. This fact is particularly upsetting, since we spent the winter in the Keys with no TV reception. Now that we can finally watch the news and other programs, the cord broke.

We have managed to get our laundry done, fill our water tanks and go to two different grocery stores: the largest Pulbix we've ever seen with a moving ramp that takes shoppers up to the 2^nd floor parking garage and also the largest Fresh Market – both within a short walk of the dock where we tied up our dinghy. We are hoping the rain will hold off this afternoon to allow us to wander down through South Beach a bit. It's such an interesting place to visit.

This is no place to look at the stars at night. The tall buildings everywhere block out most of them. It's just so different from where we've been. It's also striking that it seems like a foreign country where the primary language is Spanish. We noted this with the boats coming and going in the park, at the restaurant in the park and in the town of Key Biscayne where we went to get a few things. As we got ashore in Miami Beach, the situation appeared to be the same. In the Keys, we found that many of the store clerks spoke Spanish, but here it seems that most everyone speaks the language.

At least we won't have to dodge this in the ICW.

On Monday we'll venture out and head up the ICW to Ft. Lauderdale and then on to West Palm Beach for a visit with my sister. In transiting this route, we'll have to work with bridge tenders at 33 bridges to open for us. Most of them are on a schedule, so we'll have to hurry between some bridges and coast along between others to time our arrival properly. More on that in the next post.