There are many bridges along the Intercoastal in this area, a few around the height that are just a little too low for us to get under safely. We decided to take the mast down again to speed up the process. The bridges here open only every half hour. One bridge will open on the hour and half hour and the next bridge opens on the quarter hour and the three quarters hour. Because of our slow speed, sometimes we can’t make it to the next bridge in 15 minutes and if it’s too low for us to get under we have to wait quite awhile for the next opening.
We headed out around 2:30. The skies held the threat of rain and it was quite breezy. However, the rain never came and we had a nice trip north to our anchorage at Maule Lake arriving around 5:30. To reach the lake we entered through a long narrow canal which opened into a fairly good sized lake surrounded by homes and condos on one side and mangroves on the other. We had dinner on board, watched a little TV and then off to bed. The wind had subsided, but rain was predicted starting around midnight continuing through most of the day tomorrow.
For those of you wondering ... "are Gerry and Linda going to the Bahamas?" ... the answer is "We don't know." Right now there is no foreseeable weather window. Optimum conditions for crossing require waves 2 to 4 feet or less and winds 10-15 or less with no northerly component for 3 days. Of course, in this case, less would be even better. There is nothing like that on the horizon so we are slowly working our way north. We can still make a crossing from Fort Lauderdale or from Lake Worth in West Palm Beach. We will have to see what the weather holds for us over the next week or two.
This was just before sunrise on the morning we tried to leave for the Bahamas (3/10)
... and the sunrise as we were heading out
The skyline of Miami (also on 3/10) as we were heading out.
The rest of the pictures are from the current day - March 11. You'll notice the weather is not as nice. This is a picture of the former home owned by President Nixon. We were parked in front of it in the anchorage.
On the way into Miami we passed this 3 masted schooner
The skyline of Miami as seen through the Rickenbacker Causeway
The buildings were quite colorful, but because of the cloudy day, the color doesn't show up much
We passed by the seawall on our port side
... and here's a shot looking back at the city through the trees
Now there's a real horn blower for you.
The sign below the statue says Tequeste Point. Looked like some kind of resort
We started to encounter a bit of boat traffic -- freighters, tour boats and other pleasure craft
Sights along the seawall
Looking back at the city of Miami
We started to see lots of tugboats again
A large cruiseship at dock. To the left you can see Government Cut which leads to the ocean. You can head out this way for the Bahamas.
This is the Venetian Causeway Bridge -- kind of an interesting design
This boat made it easily under the Venetian Causeway Bridge. We had to wait for it to open as the clearance was only 12 feet. We need 15+ feet and really wouldn't risk anything less than 16 or 17
Looking back through the bridge
We passed some very colorful condos named Sunny Isles just before turning into our anchorage
This is the canal that led to Lake Maule
There were nice homes -- with nice boats
... and high rise condos with nice boats
This was the view in one direction from our anchorage
... and this was our view the other direction. Much less developed. Here is Second Star at anchor. 
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