Canterbury Sails by Chasseur: Almost There.....

January 2 - 4, 2013 Wednesday - Friday

Wednesday was a short transit to Boynton Beach, with 7 bridges to open, it was another warm and sunny day. Suzanne took a photo of the weather forecast on the TV, and texted it to 2 sisters, which prompted some irritation, as their temperatures were only 9 degrees!! We have gone from shorts and tee shirts to bathing suit weather.
Thursday we set out for Fort Lauderdale, not a terribly long run but we had to open 15 bridges. This requires lots of patience and time, speed, distance calculations to get to the next bridge at their opening. Thankfully Terry captains this ship because he has the patience and enjoys the challenge (most of the time). There was a lot of boat traffic, this should not be done on a weekend if one is to keep their sanity. Though each of the transits we have completed recently have been short in distance, we find ourselves tired from the boat traffic, constant radio communications, and bridge openings. We spent Thursday night grumpily trying to decide where we wanted to go from Fort Lauderdale. When we are tired we have a difficult time making critical decisions. After dinner we decided to plan a morning departure for Dinner Key, though we still were not sure if "Chasseur's" draft would make it through the Dinner Key channel. A Tow Boat US captain thought we could get through the channel at high tide. Friday morning we departed and started making calls to the Dinner Key Marina, and as we suspected we would have a difficult time in the channel and all their deep draft moorings were booked. We chose to skip Miami as well, though many people recommended we stop there. Big cities just are not our preference for visiting. We may stop in Miami when we travel north again. Our 'Plan B'was No Name Harbor, across Biscayne Bay from Dinner Key.
Friday had us opening 8 bridges with less boat traffic than we have had the last 2 days. We had one fixed bridge to go under, the Julia Tuttle bridge that has a clearance of 56 feet. "Chasseur's" mast is 51 feet including her VHF radio antenna. Depth perception is always deceiving when going under a bridge and looking up your mast. We made it through without a nick, but it sure was scary!
We reached No Name Harbor by mid-afternoon, (a small harbor that is part of the Bill Baggs State Park.) To our surprise, there was a restaurant on shore, that after a short dinghy ride, had cheeseburgers waiting for us! A Winn Dixie store and other shopping is just a mile away. This is our staging harbor for our trip to Marathon, just 2 "travel" days to go!!