A small little place on Sunset Lake. I hope they have a good hedge trimmer.
So what do you do when you have done all the shopping you need, played all the Magic games you can find, taken enough hot showers to wear out your welcome, watched a marathon and Mother Nature is still making 5 foot waves in the gulf stream? You go to South Beach of course! We headed back up Biscayne Bay and followed the same route we had used previously to ultimately anchor in Sunset Lake. We certainly hope the guy with all the little boats filling up the middle of the lake was oh so happy to see us. Again we walked all around the northern half of South Beach. We window shopped, got more groceries, bought Merissa a mask and snorkel, strolled on the beach, checked out the large art deco post office and people watched. One night we headed into SoBe to get some latin food. The restaurant that had good reviews on the internet looked so-so so we returned to a good looking place on the route that turned out to be a winner. All in all, it was a fun couple of days. And having a calm anchorage with no bugs to spend the evenings is wonderful. The weather is warm during the day but cool at night.
For the last several days, we have watched a variety of weather sources trying to find a window to pass over to the Bahamas. The trip to Bimini is only 50 nautical miles but it crosses the Gulf Stream. This is basically a river that runs from south of Key West around the bottom of Florida and up the east coast. It is many miles wide and the current can run up to several knots northward. When the wind is from the north, it fights the current and creates waves, large waves. At times they reach over 8 feet. We would love wind out of the west to push us along but south would be fine as long as it is under 15 or 20 knots. Lately, it has been strong northerlies. However, in two days a cold front is supposed to come thru causing the wind to shift from the southeast to south and then to the southwest before picking up speed and moving back to the north. It is supposed to be coming out of the southwest in the morning. This is another plus. The goal is to always approach a harbor in the Bahamas when the sun is high and you can clearly see the coral heads. We would prefer to leave about 5 am, reach Bimini around noon and then cruise into the harbor to clear immigration and customs. Even if the weather cooperates, there is still a small issue that we do not have all the correct forms for the cats. Hopefully, Mother Nature will bring fair winds and following seas and the Bahamian officials will be understanding.
Copes Afloat 