Miami

Today we had a short sail to Miami.  It's a good thing too, as the wind was pretty light.  But it was warm and sunny, and pretty cool sailing half a mile off the beach in front of all the condos and hi-rises between Lauderdale and Miami.  As we were sailing along I noticed the Goodyear blimp.  Apparently it is here for the Super Bowl, which is held in Miami every 7 years.  If Sue and I liked hockey a bit more I would try to get tickets.

The cruise ships have pretty much taken control of the main channel, Government Cut, coming into Miami.  We had heard that private boats are sometimes stopped and turned back if there are cruise ships docked in the cut.  As we entered the cut we called the Coast Guard twice to try to find out if the cut was closed to pleasure craft.  Getting no response we motored on through.  When we got almost to the first cruise ship a voice on out radio (luckily we had it on) told us the cut was closed and we had to turn around.  Luckily we had only come about three quarters of a mile - still it would be nice if the Coast Guard actually responded when you try to call them.




As close as we got to being on a cruise ship.


Tomorrow we are going to explore South Beach, which is supposedly a pretty interesting part of Miami Beach.  Then on Sunday, or maybe Monday, we are heading out the Keys to Key West and Fort Jefferson, which is 60 miles west of Key West.

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Mile after mile of this sort of stuff - these are a couple of the more interesting ones.

This is typical of the pleasure craft you see...

...in front of a typical house in south Florida.  Sorry, I couldn't get far enough
away to get the whole thing in the frame.  The low thing on the left is a swimming pool.