Sail the hell out of it, of course.
But where? I'm lucky enough to have a home five minutes from a fabulous sailing club located directly on Biscayne Bay in Florida. And even luckier to have my boat sitting on a mooring in said club. The problem is, I don't have the first clue where to go or what to do. And, believe it or not, the internet is almost useless to answer this question. Hard to believe, I know, but just try Googling "Biscayne Bay Cruising." You'll come up with a magazine article or two, but nothing like what they publish for the Virgin Islands, for example.
What to do? Well, I enjoy writing, exploring, and sailing, so if no one else has done it, I'll write a guide. As a blog, of course, since that's obviously the thing to do now. Everyone has a blog. I'll check that off the bucket list, too.
Be warned: this is going to be a bit more than just a guide. You will go along with me on every adventure, of course, but you'll also hear about every screw up, maintenance hassle, minor irritation, major problem, and whatever other minutiae comes to my mind. You should also know that I'm a lawyer, so there will be some consideration of rules and regulations from time to time. Sorry - I can't help myself.
First, some background. I've dreamed for years of owning a sailboat in Miami. Really. More on that some other time. For now, all you need to know is that I used to spend about an hour a week trolling internet websites drooling over boats for sale, hoping to finally find something decent in my price range. I didn't have much hope of matching my price range with my dreams for many years. Then, one day, the wife gives me a budget to work with.
You know how they say the stars align when something is meant to be? It was like that. I couple of days later I'm in a hearing with another lawyer. Turns out, he's a sailor, too. I start chatting him up about what he's sailing. One thing leads to another and I discover that his firm's boat is for sale. At the top of my price range, but he thinks they'll take less. Okay, I'm interested.
He sends me the photos, which are posted up on a broker's website. I have to tell you, I was blown away. I had never heard of an S2 9.2C, which is a 30 foot center cockpit design. I'd heard of S2, of course, because my old sailing club had several S2 7.9 boats that raced every week. A center cockpit? On a 30 foot sloop? This should be good.
It was. The boat was in pretty good shape according to the marine survey, but here's the best part: nearly new engine! Someone had installed a new Yanmar in 2011 and it had about 200 hours on it. Barely broken in. Basically, I bought that engine and it came with a boat:
So, that's how I got the vehicle that will generate stories for this blog. I can't introduce her to you yet, she needs a new name. I won't even tell you the old one because I'm superstitious. The ceremony to change a boat's name is really important and the first step is erasing all record of the old name. So it won't appear here. Ever.
I won't bore you with the details of learning to sail her. I go through my own process and teach myself. I make mistakes, but try to minimize the damage by being careful. I even created a checklist for getting the boat ready to go and closing her up when I get home. So far, so good. Which brings me to the first-ever day sailing "cruise."
We left the sailing club a little after noon on November 29, 2014, with no particular destination in mind. Actually, I was thinking of heading down to the Ragged Keys, but it's a long trip and days are pretty short this time of year. So, I figured we'd go where the wind took us, since, as I mentioned, there isn't much information about where to cruise in Biscayne Bay.
It was a windy day, about 15 to 20 knots, gusting about 25, and the bay waters were about as choppy as they get short of a gale. There are two ways out of the club. One is a shallow channel called the John A. Brennan Channel. It appears on NOAA Chart 11451 at Inset 2 (page A). It leads directly to and from the Dinner Key Marina and my sailing club. The channel is fairly deep until you get to channel marker 5. Then, at low tide, I've got about six inches of clearance between the bottom and my 5 foot keel.
Yes, I tried it while I was still in the initial stages of learning the boat. I made it out without hitting anything, but when that sonar was showing 5.2 feet, you can bet my heart was in my throat. Luckily, Chart 11451 is well marked and if you look very carefully, you'll see that there is a 5 foot deep path from channel marker 1 to the deeper parts of the bay on a heading of about 111 degrees. I followed that path and never heard so much as a scrape, but the bay was pretty smooth that day. I think if there had been chop, it would have been different.
The other channel is Dinner Key Channel, which I've been using at low tide ever since. It is considerably deeper and can handle virtually any sailboat keel I've ever heard of. It's narrow, so it's better to motor back and forth, though you'll spend some time doing that. It is about 1.3 nautical miles long. I suppose you could sail it, but only with the wind from the North through the South. Tacking in that channel is out of the question - it can be only a foot deep on either side of it in places.
It was a fairly lumpy ride across the bay, so I turned south as I came up on the entrance to the Cape Florida Channel. Just short of channel marker "4," I decided to hug the barrier reef that protects the bay from the Atlantic Ocean. Vicky said she wanted to see the houses that are still out there, called "Stiltsville." I thought that was a pretty good idea.
As we came up on the Biscayne Channel, I spotted several fishing boats moored just off the southern end of Biscayne Channel Light 21, at about 25 degrees, 39.260' N and 080 degrees, 11.200' W. I had no idea where we can and cannot anchor, so I figured if all these boats were doing it, it must be okay here.
It was after lunch time and we hadn't eaten. I didn't really want to try to juggle my lunch and the boat under sail, so I thought it might be a good time to try anchoring my new boat. For the first time ever. In 20 knot winds and choppy seas. Hey, I did mention that I can be adventurous.
Here's a tip. You might want to check out your anchor and rode before anchoring the first time. I had done a cursory inspection of my ground tackle, and it looked okay. I actually have two anchors, which is great. What I didn't discover during this cursory inspection is that the prior owner thought it might be a good idea to tie a loop about 40' into the rode and attach the second anchor there. I discovered this after dropping my plow anchor over the side in 16 feet of water and letting about 38 feet of rode out. Surprise!
Fortunately, the plow holds very well on the sandy bottom out there and even with that short scope, I was able to hold without tossing the second anchor over the side. I got the second anchor shackle off the rode (had to leave the loop) and paid out some more to get what looked like a pretty good scope on it. It probably wasn't 7:1, but it held well. I set the GPS so I could keep track of my position and see if the anchor was dragging. It stayed pretty much put through lunch, despite the choppy water, wind, and considerable swinging.
So there you have it. My first anchorage and lunch spot in Biscayne Bay. You might be thinking it doesn't sound very good, out at the end of a channel in an entirely exposed part of the bay, but you'd be wrong. It wasn't a particularly smooth ride and it sure was windy, but you will not beat that view anywhere. Off the bow (the wind was ENE) we had Key Biscayne and the Cape Florida Light. To the East were all the remaining houses in Stiltsville. We could see the boats coming and going out of the Biscayne Channel and off to the North was the City of Miami. Spectacular.
This is the view of Stiltsville from the anchorage
I'm going to try to do some more research on where a person can anchor in Biscayne Bay - a lot of it is protected. Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment