currently in:  Miami Beach, FL

It was like deja vu all over again. Coming up to Miami, we finally crossed our previous track; although we'd gone both up and down the Caloosahatchie River by Fort Myers, that didn't really seem like closing the loop as much as did pulling into the familiar anchorage behind the man-made islands off the Venetian Causeway.

Getting off the dock at Boca Chita was a bit more exciting than we liked, with a strong wind pinning us down and boats all around us. We sprung the stern out - this is a maneuver involving holding the bow on the dock by a line, and steering forward "into" the dock, which kicks the stern away from the dock. It had worked well in Juangriego on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, but here we had Tortuga behind us on the dock, and when we finally backed away our bow swung back toward the dock with the wind and nearly hit the other boat. We also have the problem that the line holding Windom's bow is from a high cleat, while the part of the boat that tries to hit the dock is the "dolphin striker" under the anchor platform, which probably shouldn't be subjected to that kind of stress. (Nor should the sailors driving the boat!) Nothing broke, nothing hit, but we're going to have to rethink un-docking strategies. Once we sorted everyething out, we had a brisk and bouncy sail to Miami, hard on the wind to Coconut Grove and then motoring the rest of the way to the anchorage.

Miami Beach is a great place. We visited the fancy gourmet foods store and the really good hardware store that had been our mainstays on the previous visit, walked over to the beach side just to see it, saw two movies, had dinner with our friends Chris and Edith, who live here, and even managed to poach a little wireless internet access by pulling out the laptop in the middle of the Lincoln Ave. pedestrian mall. What we used the net access for, of course, was downloading weather forecasts. Things continued to look good, so this afternoon we lifted anchor and motored through the Venetian Causeway drawbridge to get fuel at the Sea Line Marina. We had a little confusion about where the fuel dock was, and then we had to turn around and pull in the other way, but I managed not to hit anything and we tied up for fuel and water. One of the attendants was a woman, and she was pleased to see us - "Hey, you're the second chick driver I've seen today! You did great!  98% of the people who pull in here have the guy driving, so it's cool to see you at the wheel!"  She even gave us a 5% discount for having a chick driver. Okay, it was actually the Boat US discount, which was very nice of her because our membership has expired, so we appreciated it very much! Then we had to go back through the bridge, which obligingly opened for us again. What a feeling of power it is to make all those cars stop just for us.

If all goes well, we'll be at Chub Cay in the Bahamas by Thursday, slipping in before this next cold front - along with several dozen other boats waiting here at Miami Beach or in the anchorages at Key Biscayne. The radio chatter is all about, "Did you download the weatherfax?" and "What time are you planning to leave?" Tortuga's going to Bimini, though - maybe they'll catch up with us in the Exumas later on - and Summer Wind's decided not to go at all, so hopefully we'll meet some of this fleet to socialize with. Cross your fingers for us and wish us a placid gulf stream.