We left Rodriguez Key at 7:30 a.m. after the sun woke us up. An alarm clock is a torture device of corporate America. We turned northeast in Hawks Channel only to find that the wind was NNW! The forecasted direction was due north, and I was expecting to have to motor into the wind all day. NNW allowed just enough of an angle for us to sail "close hauled" to the northeast. About 8:30, I noticed a Juneau sailboat the same size as Agaliha was motor-sailing past us with all her sails up. My competitive juices kicked in and I raised all the sails (with no reefs) and it added a full knot to our boat speed. It also raised my spirits as we were now sailing to Miami.
(By the way, my knot meter cleaning the night before did the trick. We had a full compliment of instruments and it eased my mind.)
We kicked along over very shallow ground making time toward the big city for New Year's. In some places the depth gauge read in single digits. The seas were calm and the winds were light (seven knots). I hadn't seen this since I got to the Keys in November. Finally, the wind gods were calming down.
Linda basked in the sun as we turned the corner toward Key Biscayne with big Miami in the distance. I could almost feel the head cold cooking out of her as the sun baked down in Agaliha's cockpit. The compass read 000, or due north, for the first time in weeks. I spent the day tweaking sail trim to eek out a small bit of energy to add to the engine ticking away below us.
At 2:00 we turned into the Biscayne Cut which carried us toward Dinner Key Marina, our next home for the night. Along this cut are the remnants of about six "stilt houses" that were built in the sixties before someone realized it was a bad idea to allow these to clog the bay.
A "Stilt House" in Biscayne Bay
The Dinner Key Marina is one of the largest in the U.S. with 535 slips (not including their mooring field)! There are several large sailing clubs in the area and they were hosting a huge regatta for young skippers. There were Optimist Prams, 420s, Lasers, and 29ers. There were over 400 boats involved.
We ate dinner at a great little Italian restaurant and walked beck to the boat to sleep like mummies. It got down to 55 degrees and we loved it.
We finished 2011 by sailing 100 miles in two days to get from Marathon to Miami. The calm conditions in Miami were almost strange after the howling winds in the Keys for the last month.
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