Between November 12 and December 5 we worked our way south on the ICW passing by many of the places we'd seen last winter, but it felt quite different this time around. We were more relaxed as we "knew what we were doing", but we were also pushing hard to get south quickly so we could leave for the islands sooner. A few notable events from the trip include:
One evening, we were heading for an anchorage we had picked out on the chart. As we passed a little bay off to the side of the ICW, Geoff suggested we try it instead - it looked very calm and beautiful. It was charted at only 4 feet deep, so we slowly nosed our way out of the channel and towards shore. Well, it turned out to be 13 feet deep, which was deeper than the dredged ICW beside it! It was a great spot - fully sheltered from the wind, in the middle of a gorgeous golf course, and with wifi access!
A few days later, as we left an anchorage just south of Lake Worth at Lantana, the engine started having an odd - and rather violent - vibration. The engine RPM at which the vibration occurred seemed to be changing. We had a rather worrisome two days of motoring, trying not to run the engine at an RPM that would vibrate. Once in Fort Lauderdale, Geoff searched the web and both of us brainstormed on the possible causes - our biggest fear was that it was the transmission. After much more thinking, trying things out ("what happens if I push here while we rev the engine ?"), disassembling and reassembling things and cursing the boat builders, we believe it's a misaligned/loose connection between the transmission and the outdrive. We have fixed it to the point that it only vibrates above our normal operating RPM - we can live with that until we have the time, tools and location to look into this further.
Just north of Miami we had our best encounter with dolphins yet - they we jumping out of the water ahead of us when we first saw them, and, as we approached, they came over to check us out. Standing on the front deck, Geoff had a great view of the dolphins playing between the bows!
We spent a week in Miami Beach and just loved it. Of all the cities we have visited on our trip, it is one of our favourites. South Beach has everything in a small area, from grocery stores to restaurants, from art galleries to cinemas, from art deco boutique hotels to luxury condo towers. Each day we would wander the city picking different ways to walk to the beach and back. We loved the eclectic mix of people - there are the affluent, the artsy, the alternative, and the good-looking, to name but a few. The beach is one of the nicest and largest we have seen - it's huge, both in length and depth, and there was no lack of interesting people to watch.
ICW Lawn Ornaments (!?)
The "golf course anchorage"
The "Vote Boat" seen in Fort Lauderdale
Dolphins just north of Miami
Flowers on Lincoln Road, Miami South Beach (in December!)
Miami Beach
Miami at night
