The past few days have been fairly quiet on Second Wind as we are still anchored in Key Biscayne for the 5th straight day. Yesterday (Friday) the winds were light and Biscayne Bay looked very glassy so we decided to take our dinghy across the bay to Dinner Key and do some shopping. Winds were supposed to pick up in the afternoon so we decided to go in the morning.
There is a Winn Dixie on Key Biscayne but getting there is a little sketchy from here. Our neighbors John and Alexis on Ashling told us they had made it there a few times. You have to drop a person at the bridge on the far end of the harbor. Then they have to climb over a 3-4 foot fence onto the road. It's only about 1/2 mile to Winn Dixie but you have to walk passed a security station and hope they don't see you. We decided to try Dinner Key instead. Maybe we'll leave fence jumping for tomorrow.
Around 9:30am we had the dinghy packed including an empty 5-gallon gasoline jug that I had poured into the dinghy tank and our Honda generator. The 4-mile ride across Biscayne Bay was very cool. We zoomed at close to 20 knots which seems like flying in a 11 1/2 foot boat. The new outboard was really showing it's strength as I kept it around 3/4 throttle for most of the trip.
We slowly motored around Dinner Key checking out the (4 or 5) marinas and looking for a good place to tie up the dink. I saw a couple out on the deck of their trimaran so motored over. They told us Dinner Key Marina was the best place to tie up as they have about 100 moorings and all the dinghy's tie up there. They also said a closer marina sometimes lets people tie up but motored over there and the workers said no.
It was a 15 minute trip back to Dinner Key Marina and we found the dinghy dock pretty full. There was a sign that said, "For paying customers only. Others should use the public dock" with an arrow pointing toward the road. We motored in that direction past several commercial boats and found what we thought might be the public dock. It was pretty well destroyed and didn't even connect to shore. We motored back to the marina dinghy dock and tied up.
We had our luggage wheelie and fold-up crate so I carried them about 1/2 mile to The Fresh Market. This was a pretty high-end market with almost everything organic (read "expensive") but the fresh veggies looked very nice and they had everything we were looking for. We left a short while later with 8 small grocery bags for $107. Not too bad.
I drove the dink around the harbor to the fuel dock about 1/4 mile away. No problems filling up the 5-gallon jug with $4 / gallon gasoline.
The dinghy was pretty loaded now but it didn't seem to make any difference to our new 20hp outboard. Still right up on plane as we left the harbor for our trip back to Key Biscayne. It was a little more exciting than the trip over. The winds had picked up to about 10 knots which blew a little 1 foot chop into Biscayne Bay from the ocean - almost the exact direction we were heading. I took it easy for the first 1/2 of the trip and headed a little more north to get into the lee of Key Biscayne and cut down the waves. The last 1/2 of the trip was zooming along again at 20 knots with a fully loaded dinghy. Nice! Back at the boat we unloaded and stored the groceries and gasoline.
Here was the sunset last night. Very colorful with wispy clouds and calm waters.
Before crossing over, we had stopped at John and Alexis' where they gave us the information about getting to the Winn Dixie. Before leaving, we made plans for cocktails together that evening. Around 5:30pm they came over on their dinghy and we had a nice evening together. Their boat is a 45' (?), fairly new catamaran. There is another catamaran anchored in the harbor (Betsy and Philip) who John and Alexis had met that day too. Betsy and Philip had taken their dinghy around to No Name Harbor (where we went on Thursday) and walked to a local hardware store for something they needed. They were coming back into the harbor as John and Alexis were getting ready to leave so we waved them over and said hello. We made tentative plans for dinner together Saturday if the weather allowed.
Last night around 11pm the winds really picked up and the rain started. By midnight I was sitting in the cockpit watching natures fireworks all around us. Sometimes it seemed like a solid sheet of rain falling on us. Laura found a few more leaks in the boat that we'll try to work on over the next few days. Here is the doppler radar from my iPhone during the worst of it. We are at the blue dot in the middle. Red stuff is BAD!
I still spend about an hour each morning agonizing over the weather forecasts. Monday / Tuesday look possible for a crossing to the Bahamas if the winds go SE to S. Windfinder and PredictWind show winds staying from the east on Monday and Tuesday so that would not be good for us. I'm really hoping that tomorrow everything will start to agree. Just in case, I made "pencil us in" reservations back at Burdines in Marathon for Tuesday. Our old slip is available until Feb 15th which should put us into some better weather patterns. If the winds do stay east on Monday, we'll use them to sail back down into the keys.
This morning our neighbor John texted me and asked if I would look at an engine problem he's been having. I dinghy'd over a little while ago and was able to help him narrow down a problem where he is getting air in his fuel lines causing a problem with that engine (on a Catamaran they have two engines - one in each hull). Good news was I helped troubleshoot to the cause. Bad news is the cause is the steel pipe coming out of his fuel tank. He's going to have to get it fixed in a welding shop somewhere. Now he had to decide if they are going to stay around here for a couple weeks to fix that or go to the Bahamas (maybe Monday / Tuesday) and wait to get it worked on over there. I recommended getting it fixed here since he's more likely to find a good welding shop around the Miami area.
We had a little rain this afternoon but another storm with high winds is supposed to blow through around 3-4 with the high winds lasting until tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully, we will have a window to dinghy over to John and Alexis' for dinner tonight. I'll let you know.
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