Offshore Miami

Trip Start Dec 01, 2007
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Trip End May 31, 2008


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Flag of United States  , Florida,
Thursday, January 24, 2008

So after many days of waiting we rose to calm winds and seas.  We were up at 0630 and ready to go and after some procedural hassles getting all the lines of the fixed pier, we made the tight turn and exited the Twelve Oaks marina and headed south down lake worth toward the inlet.

I was very ready to go.  The past few days had been downers for sure as we continued to hear about tanking property values in this area (we have a number of rental places) teamed with a tanking stock market.   I began to think it many be time to dust off the resume and put less emphasis on reading nautical books.   But hey, we live for the moment and today we were finding fair winds and calm seas.  So we enjoy. 

Our real estate agent has agreed to let us use his beach house on Little Torch Key until the 30th so our plan was to go directly there so we can (at least) salvage a few days out of this kind offer.  Had the winds abated sooner, we could have used it for two weeks.  Still we are grateful for the opportunity.

Getting out of the inlet was easy and so was the day.  By 3pm we were ready to enter Port Everglades and an hour late we put an anchor down in what seemed to be a perfect anchorage.   Our cruising guide said we could anchor just outside the city mooring field.  There was a nice place to hang just outside the channel.  It was perfect.  The problem was that about 9pm the harbor police had a different idea and chased us out under the flimsy pretext of "obstructing navigation".   This is a big controversy in FL as municipal govts nor chase out anchoring boats forcing them to anchor in secondary places or pay to anchor in their facilities.  We were no where near obstructing navigation, but we moved.  So an hour later we anchored in Lake Silvia about a mile south.  It felt like Gestapo tactics to me and these kinds of heavy hands coupled with ridiculous insurance rates are driving boaters north. 

So today with that behind us we are enjoying a prefect ride south toward Biscayne Bay.  Its cooler and sees nearly flat.  Sue is at the wheel and I'm doing the blog....its great. 

With luck we will make it to deep into Biscayne Bay tonight and be ready to head down the Keys tomorrow morning...unless the cops chase us out.
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