3/14/15
Key Biscayne, FL
Position: 25 41.623N, 080 11.063W
Posted by Bill

The last week has been a mad dash to get fully ready to push off at the first available weather window, we were working till late the night before we left, and we were as ready as we were going to be. Included in the preparation buying and filling jerry cans of diesel, gas and water. Most cruisers tie them to the side rail with a support board installed, but we hadn’t done that yet. I made a trip to Home Depot via clown bike (one of many), and delivered an 8 foot 1×6 to the boat.

With solar and jerry cans, we look like an official cruising boat. Tricia, with some of my help and help from our friend Cat, got 2 coats of Sikkens Natural cetol on the cap rail…looks great!
Lot’s more left to do at some point. It is a lot of work.

We left Harbour Cay Club at 7:30, bound for Angelfish Creek, which is just north of Key Largo.

It has a really shallow entrance on the ocean side but we figured we could time the tide and make it in. From there we planned to transit to Bimini in the Bahamas. We had a great send off from the folks at Harbour Cay. Great bunch of people and we made many new friends. It was really hard to leave. The wind was forecasted to be strong in the morning but die down in the afternoon, so we decided to take the “inside route” (the ICW in Florida Bay) for the first 3 hours, as it offered better protection from the southeast wind. Then we would use the Channel Five Bridge to exit to the ocean side the rest of the way, because the “inside route” was too shallow for us. It was low tide and we dragged the bottom through the sand for a bit at the Rachel Bank, ICW mile marker 1190. Other than that, we had a good passage to the Channel Five Bridge. When we got on the ocean side we got the brunt of the wind and had 3-5 foot waves at a 3-4 second period…not fun! We were getting our asses kicked. I almost opted to turn around and anchor inside Florida Bay and conjure up a plan B, but we pressed on and the seas quieted down 3 hours later when we got to Key Largo. We got nervous about going in to Angelfish Creek as it was half tide and falling, and there is a rock ledge at the ocean side of the inlet that is only 5 feet deep at low tide, so I called Tow Boat US to ask for local knowledge. The guy told me to absolutely not transit at this tide level…great…nothing left to do but push on to Miami, but that would mean entering Biscayne Channel and anchoring at night, which is less than desirable.

I followed on the chart plotter using the track we did coming out of Biscayne Channel to go to Marathon, and we made it into Biscayne Bay without a hitch, and turned north to anchor near No Name Harbor. I thought I made it around the shoal area near the anchorage and turned too soon, landing us on a sand bar. Tried as I could, I could not get off the bar, so we called Tow Boat US (whom we have towing insurance with) and they came and pulled us off. This was the first time we have had to be towed. We anchored among large pleasure craft around 10:30 PM, several that blasted load music and partied until 5 AM. We traveled 96 miles and it was a long, long day!

The good news is, we are now only 5 miles away from the friends we wanted to travel with going over to Bimini, Bahamas. They will go right by us to head out in the morning and we can join the group.