We started the morning with a reanchoring. We were worried about a cable crossing on the chart and felt our anchor may be close to it. We did not think we were on it but had to be sure. David said that when he was anchoring initially, a rope got caught and we drifted back a bit from where he initially wanted to anchor so that may have saved us from interacting with a cable.
Another boat had departed the anchorage and was headed out east to the Bahamas. The captain was dancing jubilantly on the foredeck as he pointed east with both arms. We reanchored in his spot and had no trouble raising our anchor. The plan is to stay here through Christmas and to then head to a marina a little further south for the 26 and 27. There, we will be able to change oil, do reprovisioning and assess our readiness for crossing to the Bahamas. We called several marinas in the Miami/Key Biscayne area and all are full so it is best to do all errands here and anchor down there until we have a good weather window for our crossing. Our first step after the 27th will be to do an outside passage to Miami which is 60 miles. We think we can do that in one long day if we leave very early which should be possible because this inlet is short and well marked and we can leave at dawn. There is also an option to do a shorter run to Fort Lauderdale area and then on to Miami.
We also are learning about anchoring and our power usage while anchoring. We want to limit our use of our motor to charge our battery. The solar does really well. If we go to bed with a good charge and use just our anchor light, bilge pump and refrigerator at night, we should be ok to wait until about 10 in the morning for the solar to really kick in and charge things. On a sunny day, after 10, we can run anything and our batteries are still charging. It would be nice, however to be able to use a bit more power at night, to have internet for a few hours for instance, so we have decided to buy a small solar generator to charge devices, electric dinghy motor, and run the internet in the evening, taking some pressure off the house bank and motor.
After the planning session, we decided to launch Fat Tuesday and explore a bit. We went to Peanut Island, an island park in the harbor here. We went over to the dinghy docks at the island. A lot of boats were just pulled up or anchored off the beach and people were picnicking and playing. They have restrooms, rinsing showers, a nice walkway around the island and a snorkeling lagoon.
Back to boat at sunset,
Enjoyed a Becca’s boat meal.
