We think it is finally the time to head east!

Tomorrow isn't perfect but then again,  life isn't either.  But, if the wind gods behave and let us go then we'll head into the Gulf Stream and over to the Bahamas.  We have had a good time while in No Name Harbor and have run into a bunch of friends including:  s/v High ZZ's,  s/v Offline, s/v Gypsy Wind and s/v Celest  We even have lived though a "weekend" in No Name with the crazy weekend boaters of Miami!

65 feet……15 feet from our stern

Big enough?

Party central

Even rafting at the dock

Can you find Nati?

SRO at the "Boater's Grill"

There she is!

Dusk and they are still menacing for us!

The pictures above number over 50 boats at the dock or anchored.  Close anchoring is normal in here  but a 65 footer actually came around and we had to fend it off with a fender!  To think this boat was driven by a commercial captain!!  The restaurant had a long waiting line and I think the Coasties and police would just as soon close an eye to what goes on.  It was nutty but nobody died so what the heck??!!

Bob's new boat!!??

Some of us cruisers decided to have our own happy hour in the corner via our dinks.  5 of us tied off together and shared lies and other stories.  Even Wally's dog  (can't remember the name) had a snack when no one was looking.

A small part of our raft up

"Super crew Aduana says "OK, where are the leftovers?"

Our daily visitor……

So…..with luck the next post will be from another country.  We are hoping for a good sail and a view of the "magic water!"

No more South Beach for us!

OK, we have had enough of the dirt, noise, sirens and tour boats which one has put up with while living in the middle of a busy city.  Nati's decks are filthy.  You could clean them everyday and you would wake up in the morning and they would be dirty again.  Just think……we have to breath the same air!  It sure doesn't do you any good, that's for sure.

So……

• Nati has her new 200 feet of chain installed.  Its looks and handles great!
• We have new jam cleats installed on the mast for the lazy jacks that should speed up working with the system.
• We are fully stocked (we have lots of stuff!) for the Bahamian crossing.  Now all we have to do is get there.

Right now we are anchored back in No Name Harbor.  We had to get out of S. Beach. It's so much  quieter here.  If the window to cross happens soon we are staged in a perfect place to head over.  If we have to wait too long we'll go down Biscayne Bay to hide out.  NO MORE Miami!

Take a look at our neighbor the other day.  It's a new way to do the "stand up paddle board".  Look close…..the picture isn't great but that is dad with junior on his shoulders.  Notice the lack of any life saving apparatus on them!!  Where is the safety patrol when you need them??  The other picture depicts all the "stuff" they brought with them for the day.  They have a center console boat, 1 SUP, 1 jet ski (which by the way only goes in tight circles, mostly around sailboats nearby) and a couple of other float type toys.  So I was very happy for them to leave at sunset……

Heading west towards Miami!

Stuff, everywhere

The next picture is of one of the tour boats.  20-30 feet across ours bows give them plenty of room for a mistake.  To think the person driving this boat is a LICENSED CAPTAIN!

LOOK OUT!

Enough venting.  I better get over to the clean beautiful waters of the Bahamas.  Gringo land is getting to the both of us…

Don't worry…….the Bermuda Triangle does not have us!

We are "caught" but not by anything as cool at the BT.  Instead it's the north country and Anne is trying to take care of a bunch of issues that are going on up "north".  That means we haven't crossed over to the Bahamas yet and Nati is still in South Beach.

If we had anything new to update you with, it would be posted.  Instead, a number of new projects and just the other day we bought 200 feet of new chain for Nati.  This way, if we ever get to go somewhere other than the east coast of the US, we have sufficient rode to anchor.  We keep thinking/hoping that it will (going somewhere that is) happen.  We just don't have the magic answer right now.

We did make it to the Miami Boat Show last weekend.  Saw a bunch of new boats and "stuff" to buy.  We were pretty good though and didn't spend too much money.

So……stay tuned, we'll let you all know when we head over.  It has to be soon……winter can't last forever!

Still here!

For some strange reason a lot of people think we have crossed over to the Bahamas already.  We should be across according to our schedule (oh no…."the schedule!") but for some reason, and much of that has to do with the horrible weather for crossing the gulf stream it hasn't happened yet.  South Beach isn't the worse place in the world and we have been getting a lot of little projects completed.  Right now there isn't any option to cross for the short term so…………here we are watching the crazy people in Miami.

The Super Bowl yesterday was good but once again, our team messed up at the very end and let those cheaters pull it out.  This plane kept going around and around us yesterday morning so I'm as suing a very big fan of the Patriots lives near us.  It wasn't us!

On the way north from Marathon last week we happened upon a few more friends from the Chesapeake.  Clint & Terry have recently bought sv Finding Balance.  They had a trimaran up north and moved south a year to two ago.  I bet they are not missing the cold weather up north.

In addition we have met up with Victor & Kathy on sv Raisa right nearby where we are anchored in S. Beach.  They were our neighbors up in Pleasure Cove Marina and they are doing quite well this winter.

All in all there isn't much to report.  We are ready to head east when possible but there is no sense to rush it. We both want to sail over and not just motor straight into the wind.  We'll see…..stand by.  In the meantime there could be worse backyards to have……

The Doctor is in the "house"!

Our few days in Marathon worked out fine and we were able to get out before the next cold front came through so we didn't even bother to try to anchor on the inside.  The outside of Boot Key Harbor is actually nice since we saw the best sunsets, the water was clean enough to swim and we had plenty of swinging room.  But time to head north to get ready for our Bahamas crossing.

As we had to go right by, it was easy to decide to hold up at the LoreLei for a couple of days to see our old friends from the "Hobie Days".  The Tradewinds regatta was getting ready to start up so we got our anchor down and "hung" with our friends.

Rob, the lonely driver of 6 Hobie's showed up first and came right out to Nati.  It wasn't planned but he spent the night and we were much lighter on the refreshment level than we were the night before.

From there the rest of the racers kept coming into town and when the Puerto Ricans showed up they didn't know we were there!  What a great surprise!  Pedro, Julio and Monica showered us with hugs and kisses and it was like we saw them just last week.  It was just plain FUN!

The racers had 3 good days of sailing on the ocean side right off the beach at the Islander Hotel.  The beach was flat and large enough for all the sailors.  The ramp into the water was a little tight but the winds cooperated so not many folks hurt their boats launching or retrieving them.

At the Islander Hotel

Perfect conditions

nice butt doctor!

The Hobie 16 fleet was the largest fleet and the competition was terrific.  Along with Pedro there were other top contenders including:

Mark Modderman
Bill Jeffers
Dan Borg
Greg Rayborn


The top two racers were separated by only 2 points after two days so the final day of racing was intense for the sailors.  After all the other trophies were handed out the 1st place trophy, along with the "Carlton Tucker Award" was given to "Doctor" Pedrin Colon and his crew, Monica Cabrera!

Pedrin & Monica

Their names will go on this!

Stay thirsty my friend!

After the ceremony the work of putting all the boats and gear back on the trailer continued.  We tried to keep "Mr $5.95" from doing much work since he popped his shoulder out on the last day but Rob just did a little less.  That is good since he once again had to drive, all alone back the Syracuse in the cold and snow.  We are glad we are sitting on Nati!

Rob used to be worth $6 million….not anymore!

All loaded and ready to head north.

The time is flying by!

Since the holidays we have had quite a busy social schedule.  We sailed back to Miami from down south so we could pick up our friend Peggy, who flew in from Cajun country.  It was great to get together again.  How many boats have a professional chef on board?  Nati did!

A moth flying along!

"Chill time"

We ate very well!

We had quite a first night back in South Beach.  3AM brought loud latin music really near us and when it didn't just go away I got up to discover a "mega yacht" right in front of us anchored!  I mean RIGHT in front of us……maybe 75 feet!  Just another day in Miami!!

I like the blue lights…

The weather gave us a window to go back south and we were able to do some swimming, sailing and hanging.  It has been a few years since we have seen Peggy so we had much to catch up on.  Since we had a front come through during the middle of the week we had two days of just hanging out in Snake Creek with the wind howling but Nati was just liking the flat, calm creek.  No problems from our end.  From there we sailed down to Marathon.  We haven't been there in 3 years so it has been kind of a "old home week".  There are many sailing friends here and we have already come across many of them.   Nati is anchored on the outside of Boot Key so it's  a long dinghy ride to the marina but the view is nice here and so long as the weather comes from the north --- east, it is fine.

Heading east through Snake Creek Bridge

A good sunset view 

So our first dinghy ride into the harbor brought us right up behind a monohull going into the harbor and it was no other than sv "Distant Horizon"!  It was wonderful to see Kevin & Grace.  They just got back from their sail to the Dry Tortugas and ended anchoring right near us.  Quite a coincidence…….from the same dock in Little Sodus Bay, NY to Marathon, FL.

We have a few things to take care of here and then we will start to look for a window to cross to the Bahamas.  We are really looking forward to a good sail across the "Stream".

Nati is saying………"Hi to 2015!"

May this be the best year ever!

We are anchored down in Key Largo after spending New Years Eve having an OK dinner at Gilbert's.  The place has changed a lot since the last time we were here (3 years ago) and in many ways the "old Florida" motif is giving away to the faster paced "bigger money is better money" thoughts of many today.  We elected not to order an expensive dinner and knowing that it comes with plastic utensils.  Sandwiches, OK but for fine dining it  is not the way it should be.  But……..who are we to dictate to progress??!!  So we had a veggie & hamburger to go with the snapper ceviche'.  Tom would have loved the hard rock band that was playing.  They were good and they were loud!

Since Stuart we have made our way down to Lake Boca where we had a chilly couple of days but the Christmas spirit was in the air.

Lake Boca

Presents for Nati

From there we pulled off a long motor - then motor sail right down to Miami.  We caught the tide going down the last part of the ICW to Ft Lauderdale and then we had a damp, cloudy run on the outside to South Beach.  We anchored to our normal anchorage and were able to once again see the cruise ships pass by on the way out.  There appears to be many more than prior years.

A slow sail south

Going into South Beach

 We headed south to clean water and QUIET!  Miami is many things but quiet can never be used in the same sentence!!

Why we are here!

Swimming and a sunset at Elliott Key was great……also the water maker is on and we have already made over 75 gallons.  Yahoo!!

Our last sunset of 2014!

  Tomorrow we go back north to pickup Peggy.  Fun times are coming on down the road…..