2001 - 4/19 to 4/24 - Elliot Key - Miami

Friday, April 20th - Winds 15 East, light chop, chilly. At 2 pm we moved to the East side of Lignumvite Key and went ashore. We got all the way in, tied up, walked to the gate and found a tiny sign: “NO DOGS ALLOWED”. Not even little Molly?  I was rather pissed. Since Wayne had been here before, he stayed with Molly and I did a whirlwind tour of the old house. I tried to read about the history without my glasses. I roamed the grounds a little before the bugs came after me. In the meantime, Wayne got into a conversation with a guy who thinks he’s a ‘local’ (but really a New York transplant) and who was one of those knows-it-alls. One thing led to another and the guy said, (get this) “I never heard of a powerboat that draws five feet”! WHAT??  unbelievable - you meet all kinds.We dragged bottom as we approached the bay side of Islamorada and anchored...went ashore for happy hour at the Lorei-Lei – another place I’ve never visited but (of course) Wayne has. We’re going to try real hard to visit places neither of us has been. I’m glad I remembered to bring the camera to capture

this floating Lincoln Town at the dock!! It was a water taxi – what a concept.The whole thing was built by hand out of fiberglass by, yet another, eccentric Keys person. April 21st  - Brisk & sunny. We continued north, dingy in tow. I always wanted to go under the Jewfish Creek bridge. Of course, Wayne has done this many times. Whenever I’ve crossed the

bridge by car it was always quiet, with little boat traffic. Now, in keeping with our ‘luck’, there was a sailing club rendezvous with boats anchored everywhere, even in the channel. Lots of current, wind, boats and drunken sailors! We had to make a careful, slow approach so as to time our arrival with the scheduled opening of the bridge, because there was no room to maneuver if we had to wait. While underway in Biscayne Bay we saw a boat called “XANAX 2mg” – very clever and perhaps the best name for a boat I’ve seen in a long time. We anchored at Elliott Key just in time to see a nice sunset, had happy hour and dinner. We’re getting pretty good at timing our days and ordering up those special sunsets. The weather forecast is for more wind…but, ‘we’ll worry about that tomorrow’. Sunday, April 22nd    Breezy, clear and warm. Welcome to Elliott Key, a National Park. Fabulous place. I, of course, have never been here. (OK, I won’t go there again) We explored with Molly in tow. Followed the trails through woods and along the beach. After following a marked trail for a mile or so we came to a well-constructed boardwalk along the beach. Next, we saw a sign, “closed, damaged from hurricane Irene, Trespass is a Federal Offense”. We broke the law. It’s been several years since ‘Irene’ came through and I can’t imagine them not making repairs yet but they had money to buy several "go-fast' boats

Elliot Key on Biscayne Bay

Molly...the Queen

Our tax dollars at work!? We saw a camp site and boat docks for only $15 a day. Nice docks well built and protected. It’s a shame the depth was only 3 feet and BLUE MAX draws 5 feet. 4/23 - windy, sunny, perfect & comfortable. Good day to go fishing. Besides, since we couldn’t ‘cross’ it was better to stay in Biscayne Bay than in Miami.We decided to go to the south end of Elliott Key to Caesar’s Cut. On the charts it looked like a perfect place to fish. It is a beautiful place by lots of current and not much elbowroom for maneuvering. Other fishing boats trolled through but I didn’t see any action. Of course, all good fishermen must be somewhere else – that it has to be better fishing than where you currently are…I’m no exception to that rule so I took the dingy, equipped with fishing stuff and hand held radio, to the outer edges of the pass while Wayne and Molly remained on BLUE MAX to watch. (nap). No fish nibbled my line so I moved to docks on the other side of the channel, where of course, the fish were.Yea-right! The motor wouldn’t start. “OK, don't panic, I can do this”. I reviewed all systems and tried again. No go. Fortunately, I was still securely anchored. Wayne saw that I was having trouble and called me on the radio.I grabbed my hand-held. I thought how smart was I to bring this thing. I couldn’t get that to work either! By now I knew Wayne was thinking I could only ‘talk the talk’ (that’s another story) so we used hand signals. I heard BLUE MAX start up and Wayne was raising the anchor. I would have to row back to the boat - that would be pretty interesting with the wind and currents. Luckily, I had practice rowing at Bahia Honda. Captain Wayne expertly maneuvered BLUE MAX into my path as the current was taking me swiftly out to sea. I grabbed hold of BLUE MAX and once safely aboard, we discussed our options: do we stay anchored in the cut or leave before the tide gets too low.  The tide was going out as we spoke but I still wanted to fish. On the chart a nice looking side channel with a depth of 18 feet – looked like a perfect place to fish the night away, but it seemed not to have enough swing room. We decided to go have a look. I said, “after all, what’s the worst that could happen?” I forgot about the “gods”. It really was gorgeous with Mangroves on either side-I had visions of catching red fish, snook and snapper – good current and plenty of swing room. We dropped the hook but it didn’t feel right to Wayne but he knew I really wanted to stay so we tried several more attempts. It finally caught but with the way she laid to the wind and current, he was afraid we would end up in the Mangroves during the night. He was especially concerned if the anchor would hold when the tide changed and the current and wind would be in the same direction. Sooo…Wayne decided to raise the anchor and get the hell out of there before the tide locked us in. Oh-oh, now the anchor was snagged. But on what? We tried several approaches without success.  I was at the helm praying it would come up (after all, it was my idea to do this) -Wayne was cussing. The wind was coming up, the tide was going down and it would be dark soon. Finally, after much maneuvering and prayer and when we were resigned to spending the night, the anchor simply came loose. We got the hell out of there PDQ. We anchored back by Elliott Key. 4/23  The wind continues but sunny and comfortable. The NOAA weather forecast, which had been for 20 knot winds for the next several days, changed. According to NOAA, the winds should abate and clock to the South on Wednesday.  NOW WE HAVE A WINDOW TO CROSS THE GULF STREAM! YEA!! We tried an experiment to grow tomatoes on-board & it worked. we picked our first batch.

We readied the boat and left for Miami to get fuel and more supplies.Molly supervised the fueling process. We took on  
202 gallons - $302. We anchored near Belle Isle on the Venetian Causeway, Miami Beach. I was putting away the dock lines when a stranger came alongside and said, “You must be Winnie”.What??? He turned out to be an old friend of Wayne's, Pete from WOODJA

Miami skyline

(they were anchored about 500 yards South of us) I invited him aboard and surprised Wayne who was in the engine room at the time. He invited us over for happy hour. We were there definitely more than an hour and after many drinks later, we still had to get ourselves into the dinghy to go home...Captain Wayne wound up with one foot in the dinghy & one foot in the water. Somehow, I manged to get him onto BLUE MAX & to bed. So this is what it's like to live-aboard?? I'm lovin it...
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