01/10/2025 ICW Day 10p1 : Miami Caprice

by Brian · Published January 10, 2025 · Updated January 23, 2025

Last night was great night, well except for one thing. I had detached the bungees that hold on the amas to give them a little “rest”. You know how bungees can get stretched out if they are under tension too long. I woke up at 4am to a new hollow knocking sound in the waves. I looked outside - one of the amas was missing! I stumbled out the tent door into the dark, panicked. The amas are pretty much impossible to get, and if you find one, it’s $1000. Luckily, I found it, washed up on the beach just 100 feet away. Whew!

Our other issue, the raccoons, finally abated after I flipped one over inside the trash can and let him do a little penance in there before letting him out. Shhh, don’t tell Janet that I’m mean to raccoons.

We knew today was going to be a great one, and we broad reached/ran with the wind. I had been thinking that a natural setting was my favorite place to sail, but the constant change of the city skyline definitely kept things interesting. Sailing was easy and fun; Janet controlled the boat for a lot of it.

We landed on a “spoil island.” No, this isn’t a place to take your grandkids, it is an artificial land built up from the stuff they dredge to make the channel that we are sailing. The island had lots of coconuts - I spent a lot of time opening several rotten ones, but scored 4 good ones. Janet even partook in the fresh coconut water.

We arrived at Oleta Park, the largest natural area within a city in Florida. It is nice and we continue to feel like we are “in nature” - though I see that ending soon.

Tonight we are at an official campsite for kayakers, meaning hot showers and we treated ourselves to those cheap little plastic bottles of wine; one each.

Photos:

The ama.. recovered! Wow, that would have ended the trip if it had floated to Cuba.

Mornings by the sea, I like it!

We detoured back to Virginia Key to check out this unnatural feature. Everything is flat here, so where did this come from? People have carved into the soft stone.

There are so many things I like about this boat - being able to pedal it is a big one, but also being able to remove the mast in 30 seconds means that we can slip under low bridges that are a “go around” for all other sail boats. You can also call out to the drawbridge operators on your VHF radio, asking them to open… but it is so easy to down the mast, I figure: “why make 50 cars wait for us when we can just slip under?”

Palms on the rooftops?

The spoil island and my coconut collection. I’ve been eating A LOT of coconut. It is easier to find then here than in Latin America, where you have more competition from the locals.

Janet kissing the coconut.

The park where we are staying tonight has tons of MTB trails… though they aren’t exactly what you would consider MTB back home. Not bad, though, for a hard tail 29er.

Janet hiding from the bugs. Oddly, I didn’t notice any the last 2 nights.

Strava Comments:

Janet W.

Great day! Our campsites are getting better. Actually we haven’t had any bad ones, except maybe sleeping on the boat. Thanks for sitting in the front of the boat today and taking all the splashes for me!

Mark G.

Fantastic Photos! the one of Lovely Lobster with Miami in the background is super cool.

Paula G.

Thank goodness you found the amas! Maybe empty coconuts would have worked if you lost it.