Naples

Tied up at city of Naples Marina. Dockmaster offered dockage at the $10/night moorings ball rate. Nice. One policy that they enforce--which may be unusual--is that you have to stop by the fuel dock before heading to your appointed slip or mooring ball so that you can have your holding tank pumped out. Sunny, winds NW 10 to 15 knots, temperature in the 60s.

Marco Island

Motored 6 nautical miles to Marco Island;  right as yet another cold front moves over us. Scored hot showers at nearby marina. 406 nautical miles under the keel since leaving Satellite Beach on Feb 11th.

Goodland

Leaving Flamingo it's best to stay in the marked channel; mud flats exposed on the southeast side of Red 16.

Everglades National Park

You can see clearly the park boundary we followed inside of coming north from the Keys.

Everglades National Park headquarters in Flamingo.

Toured around the Park the past two days. Last night the predicted cold front pushed thru with heavy rain and wind. Temperatures today only in the mid 50s!

Flamingo

Our track from Islamorada to Flamingo thru Florida Bay.

 With another cold front to swing thru in a couple days, and the forecast for winds out of the west under 10 knots we thought we had a good window to head up Florida to Flamingo. As it turned out we had calm to glassy conditions the whole day. Temps lower 70s.  Ran 46 n.m. today, and to get the Yamaha 8 hp a little exercise we motored about a hour under that engine at about 4.4 knots. Fuel usage was 20.45 gallons.
Arrived in Flamingo at 2pm having left the fuel dock at PYH Marina at 8:20am.

Islamorada

Hanging out at Plantation Key Marina due windy,rainy weather. Good news is that its been in the mid 70s.

Plantation Key

PYHarbor marina is located in the larger Founder's Park in Islamorada

 Picked up the anchor at 9am and headed 'down' the keys. While underway we wondered where the Jan & Steve on Jessie M were? We had loosely kept in touch after meeting them in Little Current last summer, and knew they were here in south Florida for the winter. Turns out they responded to a cell phone call and told us they were down in Islamorada. How convenient, just about a dozen miles away!

Key Largo

Anchored in Key Largo Tarpon Basin at 1:58pm after 26 nm. Nice dinghy dock at a recently constructed Monroe county administrative office/park/cultural center site just south of Hampton Inn.


Just about to drop the anchor in about 5 feet of water.

Biscayne Bay

After raising the anchor at 8am, we motored west back to the ICW ran up the Miami River until we were blocked by freighters maneuvering in channel; by that time we were actually pretty close the Miami International airport. The Miami River is quite industrial, with shipyards, condos, crab fishing fleets all 'cheek to jouwel'. After re-entering the ICW we toured the Bayside marina/shopping complex; would have stayed for a short stroll and even a Cuban coffee but they charge $15.00 for a hour at their day-use docks. So we proceeded south and checked out the marine stadium area off Virginia Key. Michael had a crew meet or two down here in years past; interesting to see from the water. Trip down Biscayne Bay was very nice with warm weather and calm conditions. Tied up in Elliot Key national park boat basin at 4pm after 38 nm. today.

Miami Beach

Ran 24 nautical mile south to Miami Beach. Anchored off South Beach area, just north of the Venetian Causeway, in 11 feet of water at 12:50pm. 65F and winds NW 8 knots. Clear.

Ft. Lauderdale

Still in Ft. Lauderdale today. Ran up New River a good number of miles to the west of I-95/I-595/SR-84. Afterward getting back to the ICW, we headed south past Port Everglades ship terminal area and went west in the Dania Cutoff canal. The New River and the Dania Cuttoff canal are connected--as you can see in the aerial photo above--but we don't know what the water depths are to the west of where we went nor if there are bridges with less than an air draft of 8.5 feet or so. I guess we should have kept going and found out! Upper 60s and winds NW5 knots.

Fort Lauderdale

Reached Ft. Lauderdale's Lake Sylvia anchorage at 4pm. Stopped at 15th street launch ramp docks to visit stores ashore. Ran 25 nm. 60sF and winds NW10 knts


The Lake Sylvia anchorage, as you can see, is fairly small and has homes all around and no place to go ashore unless you don't mind trespassing.

Boca Raton

Visited Peanut Island in West Palm Beach (right at the Lake Worth ocean inlet) and Spanish River park on the way to Boca. Anchored along ICW at 4:50pm in 3.5 feet west of R"60" in Boca. Ran 29 nm. today.

North Palm Beach

Anchored in North Palm Beach's old port cove anchorage in 17 feet at 1:12pm. Ran 28 nm today. Was 41F this morning; winds NW15 knots.


Hobe Sound bridge opening for big motoryacht.

Port Salerno

34 nautical mile run to Port Salerno's Manatee Pocket (next to Stuart). Anchored at 1:52pm in 5 feet off Pirate's Cove Resort/Marina. 54F, sunny, winds 15W-NW. Ran between 4.8 to 5.5 knots at 1,400 rpm.


Pecan at anchor. In the background you can see Hinckley's Florida service center and a nice Nordhaven 47 at their docks.

Vero Beach

Anchor up at 8am; Tied up at 10:30am at Vero Beach municipal boat launch ramp dock located in a protected basin just north of the Barber bridge. All public mooring balls in use; I guess this is where a lot of cruisers spend the winter. Short run of 12 nautical miles today. There's a strong cold front moving in tonight. 55F, cloudy/rainy, N 10kts.


Boat ramp basin; we're on the left off screen.

Departure on South Florida Circumnavigation

Launched Pecan a couple days ago at the Eau Gallie causeway boat ramp in Melbourne, and brought Pecan to the dock behind our house for final provisioning and filling up the water tanks. Left Satellite Beach at 1:18pm after Tamara completed some last minute errands. For this trip we'll be going a whole lot slower than our trip thru Canada. Today we ran at 5.2 knots; Yamaha 150 doing 1400rpm. After 25 nautical miles we anchored near Sebastian just outside the ICW channel. 50F, partly sunny and winds north at 5 knots.

Anchored off one of the many spoil islands.

Pecan Projects 1 - LCD monitor, Solar hot water heater, Radar installation

LCD HDTV installation.


Dynex (from Best Buy) 19 inch LCD HDTV/Monitor shown 'driven' from Asus netbook. One nice thing about the 10 inch netbook is that it will configure via function keys to operate at higher screen resolutions than 800x600. Here it's running at 1024x768. Not shown is USB Logitech trackball off the screen to the lower right.