Still in Dania Beach Marina in Dania Beach, FL. Saturday (2/15) Rick (Blue Horizon) and Michael had a great day together – a trip to Home Depot to buy plywood, lumber, etc. for a sofa storage project. The project included pulling the innards out of the sleeper sofa. Michael pulled ours out several weeks ago but didn’t have the materials to finish the project, so he helped Rick dispose of their sofa innards then out came the skil saw, impact driver, hammers and all sorts of tools to create matching “under sofa storage”. The boys were happy as were the girls.

What a treat this morning, Sunday (2/16). We were invited to breakfast by Melanie and Rick aboard Blue Horizon. Yummy avocado toast with greens, soft boiled eggs, fresh fruit, orange juice and coffee, mixed with wonderful conversation. Such nice “new” friends! Then for lunch, our “old” friends Cathy and Jim Beardsley with two of their three children (Coco and Carver) drove from Boca Raton, FL to pick us up and take us to lunch. We had a wonderful waterside table at GG’s and, again, had a wonderful meal with wonderful conversation, catching up with our old friends. Darn! I forgot to take a photo. Back to the boat, Michael and I along with the doggies, took a late afternoon walk on the beach.  Such a lovely day!

Monday (2/17), kind of a lazy day. I went to Publix with Rick and Melanie in their rental car. On Tuesday (2/18) we decided to stay in Dania Beach but said good-bye to our new friends. Blue Horizon headed north while we will continue to move south when we leave tomorrow.

It was a beautiful day (Wednesday, 2/19) for a boat ride! We traded our corduroys, jackets and tennis shoes for shorts, tank tops and flip flops. Then we lowered our radar mast and pulled away from the dock around 9:00 and eased under the “fixed” 17-foot bridge leading out of the marina. We left the radar down for the next two bridges but had to put it back up so we would have accurate GPS fixes to navigate by.

There was lots to see along the way but not much boat traffic and until we hit the Miami area and it was crazy with watercraft of ALL kinds.  

And, we had more bridges today. FYI:  If the bridge height is too low to traverse, we need to know when or how it will open. Some open on demand, some on the hour and half-hour, some on the quarter hour and three-quarter hour. Then we needed to communicate with the bridge tender to request passage. Jeez! As our friend Melanie says – it’s like a horrible math problem. Example: If your boat travels at 8.3 knots and you need to make the opening at 9:15 with a wind coming from the north, tidal current coming from the south, and you slow down for the go-fast boats waking you and the no-wake zones – what time do we really have to leave the comfort of our dock to make the next opening? Oh my, I have a headache!

Well we didn’t do the math right today and missed the Venetian Bridge opening by seven minutes which meant we had to hang out for 23 long minutes. While the big sport fisher waiting beside us seemed to be stuck to the bottom – never moving and acting like a well-behaved dog – Scout had to do numerous donuts while avoiding other little boats and waiting for the bridge to open and let us through.

We arrived at a wonderful anchorage with turquoise water and sunny skies around 1:30. Key Biscayne Bite is an anchorage just off the Key Biscayne Yacht Club, with multi-million-dollar estates on one side the and beautiful Miami skyline on the other. Once secure we lowered Scout-About and dinghy-ed to the Yacht Club and a walk-about. The Yacht Club is undergoing a ground-up remodel but had a waterside bar where we had a drink and watched about ten juniors prepare their Optimists sailboats for after school lessons. Sooo cute! Then we headed back to Scout and watched their practice races.

Thursday (2/20) we woke up to a beautiful dolphin show. There must have be twenty or so dolphins jumping out of the water and playing with each other off the stern. Pretty funny to see them swim by upside down.  Fabulous!

We are headed to Key Largo in the morning weather permitting. Will let you know how that goes in the next post.