Day 169
The winds in our anchorage off Tavernier Key picked up during the night, so Legacy did some rocking, but nothing unbearable. The forecasts for Friday, 02/26/21, were for gradually increasing winds throughout the day, so we wanted to rise early and get underway as soon as possible. Even though dawn was just breaking, it was too early to leave, because we could not yet see the crab pots in the waters around us. As we waited for the sun to come on up, we noticed some storms on the radar to our south and hoped they would stay south, rather than traveling northward toward us. We finally pulled anchor at 6:50 am and headed past the now submerged sandbar back out into the Atlantic. Winds were already up and waters choppy, so I took a Dramamine, just to be on the safe side. Gone were the calm serene waters of the day before! After about an hour, we finally saw our beloved dolphins again. We’d hoped they would surf our wake along with the boat, but they disappeared as fast as they’d appeared.
Finally, around 9:45 am, we were able to see the Miami skyline WAY off in the distance, far ahead of us. After bouncing along on those rougher waters for almost three hours, that skyline was a welcome sight, and the closer we got to it, the better I felt. By this time, we had entered Biscayne Bay and thankfully around 11:30 am, we changed direction so that we were heading more northwesterly, which put the waves more at our stern, making the ride less bumpy than traveling broadside to the waves, which we had done all morning long. The water all around us was still a spectacular, bright teal color, as the Miami skyline grew larger and larger.
We passed more and more boats, and even cruised through a place called Stiltsville, where there are multiple wooden structures built on stilts about 10-feet above the waters of “the flats” in Biscayne Bay. None of these places appeared inhabited, but they seemed to be maintained. History tells us that the first structure on stilts was built in the early 1930s, but some Dade County historians say that there were a dozen shacks as early as 1922. “Crawfish” Eddie Walker built a shack on stilts above the water in 1933, toward the end of the prohibition era, allegedly to facilitate gambling, which was legal at one mile offshore. Crawfish Eddie sold bait and beer from his shack and was known for a dish he called chilau, which was a crawfish chowder made with crawfish he caught under his shack. Two of Eddie’s fishing buddies soon built their own shack in 1937. Shipwrecking and channel dredging brought many people to the area and more shacks were constructed, some by boating and fishing clubs. Local newspapers called the area “the shacks” and “shack colony”. In the late 1930s, shacks on stilts appeared in the area as social clubs, the first one being named the Calvert Club. In 1940, the Quarterdeck Club was constructed. When it opened in November, membership cost $150, by invitation only, and became one of the most popular spots in Miami. Life Magazine even published an article about the area in February of 1941, which noted that Stiltsville was an “extraordinary American community dedicated solely to sunlight, salt water and the well-being of the human spirit”. In the 1940s and 1950s, Stiltsville may not have looked like much but it was a popular place where lawyers, bankers, politicians, and other moneyed, well-connected Miamians came to drink, relax and kick-back. At its peak in 1960, Stiltsville consisted of 27 structures, even though some of them were damaged in hurricanes – particularly by Hurricane Donna in 1960 and Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Today, the seven remaining structures are part of the Biscayne National Park, and in 2003, the Stiltsville Trust was created to spare destruction and insure preservation of these structures, and hopefully utilize them for public service and education in connection with the national park and Miami history.
After Stiltsville, we passed through Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve and then beside Key Biscayne, Crandon Park, and Virginia Key, each of which were beautiful and look like so much fun from the water. I really wanted to stop there, but we were on schedule to meet our reservations at Vice City Marina, in the Brickell section of Miami. We hoped to have an opportunity to explore that area, but wound up being pressed for time with all the other things we did and places we went during our stay in Miami. Maybe next time!
We arrived at tiny Vice City Marina at 1:00 pm that afternoon. Eddy, the dockmaster who welcomed us and helped us get into our slip and tied-up, thanked us for actually arriving on time, which apparently is not common for boaters making reservations at his marina. He spoke of many an evening he’s had to stay after hours waiting on boats who were slated to arrive during the early afternoon, but wound up not arriving until as late as 7:00 pm sometimes. I could barely perform my first mate duties when we arrived, for gawking at all the huge, beautiful buildings of the Miami skyline, that we were slipped right at the base of! No matter which way we looked, the view was spectacular if not plain stunning. I took a TON of downtown Miami pictures. The Brickell area is an upscale, mostly commercial area, and our marina had impressive security measures that kept us feeling safe and comfortable in our downtown location. Vice City Marina, itself, is very small with fixed, concrete docks (only 24 slips), and has no real amenities other than power, water, security and beautiful views. It’s proximity to the wide open, heavily-traveled channel between Miami and Biscayne Key kept the waters in our slip churning for the entirety of our stay, with some of the larger yachts that came through (ignoring the No Wake Zone signs, of course) causing as large as 3 to 4 foot waves to slam our marina and send poor Legacy flying around in her slip and pulling against her lines. We soon learned that this marina was NOT the place to enjoy a calm, peaceful stay. 😐
When we flew to Miami several years earlier for the Miami Boat Show, we happened to stay in this exact same area of town, so were pretty familiar with it. In fact, we walked to one of our favorites, Cantina La Veinte, for a late lunch/early dinner and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was a nice treat after spending most of our day on a roller-coaster. Cantina La Veinte serves wonderful margaritas and is quite proud of them ($17 a pop!), but we felt they were in order and splurged.
After our meal, we walked back to our marina to enjoy evening cocktails, watch the boat traffic, and ogle the beautiful buildings that began to light up as the sun went down. Little did we know that the intense rocking we endured that evening was NOT simply because it was a busy, Friday night in Miami with lots of boat traffic…
Position: N 25° 45.848, W 80° 11.290
Distance traveled: 63 SM
Total distance traveled: 2567 SM
Total marina nights: 147
Total nights at anchor: 21
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27