Goodbye, Keys; Hello, Miami!

Who would have thought that a light to moderate chop is much worse than moderate chop to choppy?!  We made contingency plans for a slip at a marina on the other side of Marathon (we were on the ocean side and wanted to move to the intracoastal waterway) in case the 10 miles under the 7 mile bridge to the other side in moderate to choppy proved to be more than we wanted to deal with, after getting beat up on the light to moderate chop we had traveled in Saturday to Marathon.  We had our best saltwater cruising ever and are in Miami, 120 miles traveled on Wednesday March 14.  Marine forecasts are no more reliable than those on land (but we're still glad to have the guidelines).

A good omen for the day, but notice all the crab and lobster pot floats.

St. Christopher was with us today, Linda and Ken-Mary spotted a float while the boat was on plane.  She called out to John and assumed crash position (the same position Jeffy chose when he realized the goose was going to hit the car).  The float appeared behind the boat.  Double whew!

The intracoastal in the keys is varied and beautiful, but tends to be shallow, much of it is only 5 feet deep.  The greatest depth was 20 feet.

You want to be sure to stay in the channel!

Just like driving on the highway, there are many competent boat captains and some who make you wonder.... The sailboat on the left in the picture chose to overtake the smaller sailboat in a narrow channel while we were approaching.  Yup, we had to pass between them.

Later, as we were approaching the fuel dock by the bridge at Jewfish Creek, we had to reverse as a catamaran crossed immediately in front of us where there wasn't room.  We moved on to the fuel dock, the catamaran approached an anchorage and ran broadside into an anchored sailboat.  He then moved across the river and anchored to wait for Florida DNR law enforcement officers.  The dock attendant told us the boat was anchored within the boundaries of Everglades National Park-no anchoring allowed.  It would have been interesting to stay to for the end, but we had miles to go...........

Approaching Miami:

The docks belong to the condos on either side.

It was a VERY long day and we were tired when we docked.  John washed the salt off the boat and we ate and went to bed, but Mary watched an episode of Criminal Minds-the first we've had tv in 3 months!