We spend a very pleasant overnight in Boca Chita and renew old acquaintances and make new friends notably Mike on Jack of Hearts, and Bruce on Dolphin Dance. Mike is a retired state prosecutor and Bruce is a professor of forensic criminology at Florida State University. Interesting folks.

Next day, we head the short distance up the remainder of Biscayne Bay to Miami. We get a mooring at Crandon Park on Key Biscayne which we liked a lot on the way down. We're in the shadow of Miami but in the quiet and security of Key Biscayne. This is a great place to stay as they have both moorings and a large marina.

We talked about spending a few days in Miami but the "barn door is open" and there is a good weather forecast for tomorrow for the transit up the Atlantic to Fort Lauderdale. Recall that there is one bridge in Miami which is only 56 feet, apparently an error made by design engineers as it does not conform with the 65 foot standard of the rest of the bridges. While this transit is not that big a deal; it's only about 30 miles or so, there are tides to contend with as well as the complexity of departing and entering these major ports, usually in the company of many other vessel of all shapes and sizes. You've got to have your wits about you.

Our transit was easy and we get into Fort Lauderdale early in the afternoon. Instead of going up the New River to the downtown as we did on the way down and suffered the various indignities I chronicled in that post, we anchor in a very nice place called Lake Sylvia. Again, like many of the other "lakes" around this area, it I really the hole that was dug to build up the land areas for the housing developments so you are really in rich folks' back yards. We anchor along with various other sailboats and Judy and I dinghy to a funky bar/restaurant where St. Patrick's Day celebrations are in full flight. Despite our heritage, we aren't inclined to join too much in the merriment and head back to Sea Sharp for a quiet night at anchor.

Next day, we wrestle with the many bridges and gawk at the unbelievable houses which line the intercostals as we make our way to tony Boca Raton. We anchor in Boca Lake with a back drop of glamorous homes and high rise condos. Judy is trying to arrange to meet JP, a long time family friend who lives here. We dinghy ashore, but there are few place to tie up (we're surrounded by private homes and condos) but we do find a rock wall with anchor bolts in it to tie up to. And so starts another saga to be continued in the next post.......