044: Great Snorkel, Another Great State Park, and a “Last Supper”

 

We left John Pennekamp Sate Park on Saturday the 3^rd of February on a beautiful morning with the goal of heading to Coconut Grove and grabbing a mooring ball and then site seeing  town.  That planned changed as you will see.  

Nice sunrise:

 

We had to go under a 14-foot-high bridge which is just above our 13.5-foot-high “air draft” to head over to the “bay side” (vs. Atlantic Ocean side).   We chose to leave at low tide which  gave us another twelve inches or so of room.   Logically we had covered our basis using simple math:  14+1-13.5= 1.5 feet to spare, but logic often conflicts with the “pucker factor.”   As you approach these low bridges, it just doesn’t look like you can make it: before we went under the bridge, Nancy went on deck to watch for clearance as I ever so slowly inched Hygge under it.   We had plenty of room of course, but we were so dialed-in to the task at hand that we didn’t think to take any pictures.   

It was a picture-perfect day and I called Sol Maria to find out where they were and what they were up to as they had gone on ahead.  They recommended that we snorkel on the wreck of the Mandalay Bay  (https://www.nps.gov/bisc/learn/historyculture/mandalay.htm) and then try and get into No Name Harbor in Bill Baggs State Park in Biscayne Bay, so, that is what we did!

The water was very clear and a beautiful aquamarine color, this is what we had hoped for in the Bahamas.   Finally, the kind of weather we had hoped would be the norm for the Key’s but turned out to be the rare exception.   

 Snorkeling the wreck (photo credits Kathy Murphy).   

Nancy:

  

Lots of fish:

 Here is something you don't see often:  A moray eel out of its hiding place swimming out in the open:

After snorkeling, we headed up to No Name Harbor.  On the way we could see thirty feet to the bottom and Nancy saw a big shark go by, and not a nurse shark (catfish of the ocean), but a real shark. 

Clear Water:

It being a Saturday, the harbor was packed with Florida boaters, but, yet again, having “diminutive sized” boats proved to be a bonus:  KatMat and Hygge were able to raft up together and anchor in a small corner of the harbor just shy of the mangroves.

Rafted up:

 

 360-degree view of the harbor:

 

 After setting the anchor alarm and getting settled, Nancy made some Pina-Colada’s and we had a KatMat/Hygge happy hour.   We then took the dinghy to the shore and caught the sunset before heading to the one restaurant in the small bay.   The sunset was very nice, the restaurant was not.  The food was served cold and was tasteless and it was expensive: it is clear the place does well only because it is the only game in town.

Key Biscayne sunset:

 

The next day, the aforementioned storm turned out to be pretty much a “nothing burger.”   We did have some heavy rain for a few minutes, but that was about it.   After it passed over, Nancy and I went for a walk around the park over to the lighthouse, which unfortunately was closed for renovation.   

 

One nice thing about the weather, it kept away, in the words of a marine police officer, “the usual crazy weekend boater crowd.”   The next morning, I took the dinghy ashore to drop off some garbage before heading up to Ft. Lauderdale for our last (for now) reunion with the crew of Sol Maria.    

We passed through Miami without incident and grabbed a mooring ball in Ft. Lauderdale barely off the ICW channel.   The mooring ball pendants (what you actually tie up to) were shredded and non-functional.  A very nice man in an adjacent sailboat came over in his dinghy to help us and KatMat get lines secured underneath our respective mooring balls, not the “usual way” but plenty secure and serviceable.

The mooring field was located right near the International Swimming Hall of Fame.  It was here that Nancy won first place at the AAU Junior National diving competition on the one meter board when she was 14.  Note how high some of the platforms are:

We arranged with Sol Maria to meet at waterfront restaurant about 2.5 miles away with the choice being to dinghy over to a small dock and “uber” to the restaurant or take the dinghy through the ICW and the New River which runs through downtown Ft. Lauderdale.   I won this round, and we took the dinghy!   (Riding through these channels and “exploring” by dinghy is one of my favorite pastimes.)   We passed the usual “gazillion” $ homes and yachts and just shy of the restaurant encountered a railway bridge in the down position, that by literally laying down in our dinghy, we could just get under.   At the restaurant we met up with Gavin and Lica for a great meal.   This will be our last meeting on the Great Loop as they are selling their boat and getting a bigger one in France this year; hopefully it will not be the last time we ever break bread together.   Truly a great couple.   We were told that the true pleasure of doing the Great Loop was the people we would meet along the way, and Gavin and Lica fit that to a “tee.” (I will forever remember the kind note that Lica wrote for me the day my mother passed away.)

The "gals:"

The "guys:"

 

 After saying our farewells we took motored back to our boat via the waterway at night, which was a bit of an adventure but we hugged the shore and stayed out of the taxi-boats, and other traffic.

 Dave

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