Miami!

Friday, January 6, 2017

Scott Thorne is a friend of ours from our home marina, and a fellow Pearson owner.  He started south after us, but got ahead of us while we were home for Christmas.  I contacted him last night, and found he had moved the boat from South Miami to North Miami, so our day's travel would be even shorter than planned, only about 19 miles.

Since we weren't pushing to get miles in while there was daylight, we didn't get up until after dawn, and took our time departing.  But we still had a bunch of drawbridges to pass.

Along the way, we've seen countless pelicans.  Grey ones, white ones, brown ones, in all sizes.  But spotting a swan was pretty unusual!  It just swam along serenely as though it owned the canal and we were beneath it's notice.

We also encountered numerous obstructions in the water, sometimes singles, sometimes in groups.  What were they?  Crab pots?  Mines?  No, ... coconuts!

Floating Coconuts

Somewhere around 1:00 pm , we arrived at the Oleta River State Park.  Located off of the ICW just opposite of Baker's Haulover Inlet, this is a fantastic anchorage.  Active captain describes it as one of the best in Miami.  The park lands provide an undeveloped vista of beach and mangrove, while high rise buildings loom in the distance.  Once in past the entrance there is plenty of depth, and room for many boats.  We anchored just next to s/v Irish Blessing , and Scott and his friend Ken (from s/v Independence) dinghyed over to greet us.

s/v Irish Blessing

Scott and Ken

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the view.  Life is good.

The View from the Deck

Our friend Bill Bredlow is going to meet us here on Monday, so we're just going to kick back and relax for a while.  After that, we'll start in on our final provisioning and wait for a weather window to do the crossing to the Bahamas.