Late Coffee…Early Cocktails

Coast Guard Copter Over s/v Destiny

We spent seven days anchored in Miami Beach and knew from past experience that it would not be dull.  Cruise ships parade in and out Government Cut twice a day, tour boats drone by introducing the sights in English and Spanish, the Coast Guard seems to be on maneuvers by all means– air, water and land –and cruising boats jockey around the anchorages searching for a bit of peace and quiet beyond the fray.

At one point Greg tried hailing our friend Dave on sailing vessel Destiny via VHF radio, “Destiny, Destiny this is Yoohoo, over”.  We were amazed and amused when the cruise ship Carnival Destiny immediately replied in heavily accented English “Yoohoo, this is Destiny”.  They NEVER answer at sea in the middle of the night! Capt Claw was tempted to reply “Is Dave there?” or “Sorry Carnival Destiny but we were hailing the itty bitty sailing vessel Destiny”.

Yoohoo and the other Destiny

We were also amused by the newest means of parting tourists from their dollars,  a tour boat bedecked with

all the trappings of a tikki bar on a sand beach.  I’d like the marketing folks at Tikki Beach Tours to know that when this palm-frond streaming barge first rounded the bend and came whizzing toward us, I thought the largest duck blind known to man was invading our anchorage.  Perhaps not quite the image they were aspiring to.

On another breezy day a new boat into the anchorage came over for directions to the dinghy dock and, as is customary in cruising circles, left us their boat card before they dinghied off in search of groceries.  The

Tikki Beach Tour Boat - only the sunburn is free

card soon became critical as it became apparent that their boat was dragging anchor.  Luckily it was dragging at a leisurely pace allowing them to be roused from their lunch on Lincoln Ave to hoof it back on foot and in dinghy to retrieve the boat and put it back where it belonged.

Eying an unusual 3-day window of good weather which would allow us to hop down the Keys we hauled anchor, refueled at Crandon Park and headed south down Biscayne Bay.  We were in the process of hoisting our sails, shocking even ourselves, when we vaguely noticed lots of tiny laser-like sailboats zipping back and forth up ahead.  We set our course between the two largest groups and had just got the genny set when all of a sudden all these boats, perhaps 30 of them, turned and started streaming straight toward us at very close range.  Holy Sea Hazard!  We are headed straight for the starting line of an Olympic training race going the wrong way!  That explains the little bang, that big puffy buoy thing over there and the glares we are getting from all the athletes as we part the fleet neatly in two.  Capt Claw tried to steer straight through their flanks to avoid collision, wrapping the genny round the forestay in the process.  Horrors!

Luckily we didn’t leave any roadkill in our wake and suffered nothing stronger than a gesture or two. Or were they waving hello?  In our defense, the race committee, enthroned on a very expensive Nordhavn trawler, must have seen for at least five minutes that given our course, we would soon scramble their race if action wasn’t taken. They could have hailed us via VHF to warn us off or delayed the race 2 minutes until we cleared the area.   We straightened out our sails and soothed our burnt egos and glided on south, happy to see busy Miami Beach recede in the distance until it was just a little cluster of buildings perched on the edge of Biscayne Bay.