Okay, I thought everyone had ESP and could tell that I was blogging with difficulty this morning by using the phone and the itsy bitsy keyboard and that was why the blog was so short. Sorry.

We called the guy in Cocoa who worked on our computer last month and had him talk us through resetting something or other. Lo and behold I can blog again! In my next life I am coming back as a computer geek.

January 6, 2014

Yesterday morning we left our anchorage in Lake Sylvia, Ft. Lauderdale very early. The alarm went off at 0500 and we were weighing anchor by 0520, motoring out of the anchorage by 0535. We made it to the bridge and requested a 0600 opening which we got. Unfortunately the cruise ships were already coming into the harbour. The first one we met immediately after the bridge. Luckily we only had to do one donut to avoid him and then we were cleared to go. The second cruise ship was in the channel but we only had to give him the centre and we had to hug the north shore of the channel going out. That was a no brainer as he was much bigger than we were!

We had an uneventful motor down the Florida coast. Boy do we pick our weather windows, seas only about 2' and no wind! We got into No Name Harbour and had anchor set by 1215. The temp was warm and skies off and on cloudy with no rain until well after we were anchored.

North Miami.

Miami.

Turquoise water, too bad the picture doesn't capture the colour!

Government Cut, Miami (major shipping channel.)

Dive operation in the Government Cut channel.

 

Lighthouse at Cape Florida, Key Biscayne.

Stiltsville, literally houses built on stilts in the water (how do they get hurricane insurance?)

Entrance to No Name Harbour.

Boats at anchor in No Name Harbour.

Both Jorge and I had a bit of a siesta in the afternoon, just can't do early mornings anymore. Besides the winds were supposed to pick up after 1900 and really blow and we did not want to be exhausted, not knowing what kind of night we were going to get.

We put the dinghy in the water late afternoon and went over to visit Dave and Rose on Cloud 9. We got invited aboard for happy hour, (surprise, surprise) which we gladly accepted. Lots of no see 'ums around. The wind was picking up by 1900 when we headed back to CS'ta Time. We had supper and then settled down for an eventful night. As mentioned before, I got an error message when trying to sign into my blog, so I went to bed instead of blogging. Jorge stayed up until 2300 watching the boats swing and making sure things were fine and they were. This morning we were still in our same spot but one of the boat next to us reanchored during the night. A fellow cruiser said he checked the winds and at one point they were blowing 42 kts!

January 7, 2014

We were up shortly after 0800. Jorge had been up a couple of times during the night but things were fine. The CQR anchor has really worked for us. The weather has really turned cold, well 16C on board this morning. The winds were still blowing and it was time for the heater and warm clothes. Gee, I felt like it was October/November in Canada.

We dinghied around the harbour and talked to a few fellow boaters then headed to land. We checked out the pumpout system, laundry, showers, restaurant and part of the park. No Name Harbour in situated in the middle of a state park. We then headed back to the boat for lunch and warmth!

We spent the afternoon not doing too much, tidying up the boat, checking weather. You know the usual boat stuff.

We had invited Dave and Rose to have happy hour with us and they arrived around 1700. We discussed the weather window jumping to the Bahamas. This weekend is looking good and we have both decided it would be nice to do it together as buddy boats. We will talk further as the weekend gets closer.

(I have to work on the videos, couldn't download them tonight.)