12/4/18
Marine Stadium Anchorage, Miami FL
Position: 25 44.507N, 080 09.972W
Posted by Bill

We had a great time as always in Stuart. We hit all of our usual favorite places to eat and drink, and also did some grocery shopping. We also got to catch up with good cruising friends Hayden and Radeen on Island Spirit. We haven’t seen them in a long time, and it was fun to get together. I wish we could have had more time hanging out with them. We were watching the weather because we knew that we needed to run offshore (which cruisers call “outside”) to get from Ft Lauderdale to Miami. There is a bridge on the ICW in Miami that we cannot get under, so this is our only option, and actually, it is so much nicer than dealing with all of the bridges and crazy ICW boaters in south Florida. We were also considering running outside from Lake Worth to Miami instead of taking the ICW from Lake Worth to Ft Lauderdale, so a good couple day weather window was what we needed. We have run offshore in winds over 20 knots but have found that we much prefer a calmer sea state, so we shoot for max of 15 knots in our windows. The weather this year has been a lot worse than usual from a wind perspective. This year we have had 15 plus knot winds for a good 90% of the days we have been traveling…very uncharacteristic this time of year, so we ended up staying in Stuart for a week before we could get a window.

So, we left on 12/2. The winds had not died much at all, so we stayed on the ICW through Lake Worth and anchored in Lantana FL at position 26 34.824N, 080 02.861W. On 12/3 we found that one of our preferred anchorage in Ft Lauderdale was empty…amazingly…so all 4 boats got in and we anchored in position 26 08.576N, 080 06.571W. Here is a picture that I took of Island Bound at anchor, from the top of Kurt and Sharon’s boat:

Every time we run the ICW in south Florida I am amazed at the array of multi-million dollar homes and boats that line the waterway…and it just goes one after another for pretty much all of south Florida. I can’t fathom how that many people can have that much money. Here are some sample pics:

You do get to see some wildlife at times. Here was an eagle:

And then this Jurassic Iguana on the bridge:

On 12/4 we went offshore from Ft Lauderdale to Miami. It was a great day on the ocean and it was really nice to be rid of the damn bridges on the ICW! Steel Away ran offshore with us while Sofia Jeanne and At Ease took the ICW. We floated into Marine Stadium and dropped anchor. This anchorage was an old marine stadium where all sorts of water based competition took place decades ago. Now it is a great anchorage with an amazing view of the Miami skyline:

Here is a shot from offshore looking at Miami Beach and South Beach:

Here we are coming in the Government Cut Inlet at Miami:

Kurt shot this view of Island Bound going into Miami:

The winds are picking back up and we are trying to decide if we stay at Marine Stadium or tough it out on Biscayne Bay and Florida Bay, which are large bodies of water with pretty rough conditions in higher winds. We will check again in the morning and make a final decision.