S/V Sjokolade

Today we left Dinner Key. Our first stop was a pumpout and to add water. We filled both the forward tank and starboard tank today, having put on the new vent fitting yesterday evening. Its nice to have "enough" water - I went without adding water from the time I arrived in Dinner Key until this morning. I had probably 5 gallons left of 50.

Then we fueled up at a nearby marina that had fuel and when we cast off the dock, it suddenly occurred to me that we were leaving for the trip, right then and there.

Not a very long trip, about an hour, and we arrived at NoName Harbor about 1:30. There was a crowd there already, I counted about 15 boats anchored and probably another dozen tied up to the shore. We picked a spot between two others and asked one boat if there were any restrictions on anchoring there.

"Just keep your distance from us," she replied. "I have out 75 feet, most people do, so up there near the channel entrance is your best bet."'

So we slowly moved up to the entrance and dropped anchor. Once set, we slowly started drifting towards our starboard neighbor. He asked how long we were staying. "Overnight," I responded. "My wife will be worried," he called out, and I said, "Yes, I am too, we'll move in a bit."

A catamaran moved in where I would have next anchored, but then left, so we pulled out and anchored again, this time closer to the channel entrance. We got a good set and let the wind move us around. We had a good spot, not only for the night, but also for leaving in the morning.

The image is from the bow looking down the bay, there is not way it really conveys the number of boats in this very small anchorage, there are probably as many as 50 boats in this very small harbor. Saturday night on Biscayne Bay, 90 degrees, no clouds, light winds. What a way to start the journey.