West Palm Beach to Miami.

January 22, 2016

West Palm Beach to Miami...  Who WAS Art Deco anyway?

Yay!  Our friends Jim and Mimi from the boat Perfect Balance came to visit!!  Looking back through this blog, Jim and Mimi feature frequently as we traveled with them quite a bit last winter.  Unlike us, Jim and Mimi finished their loop trip and are back home in the real world in Hamilton, Ontario, working, with their lovely boat up for sale.  They came down for week and "slept around" with various boating friends.  We were lucky to have them on Gran Vida for three nights, one of which was Mimi's birthday.

We took a slip in Miami so it would be easier to get around.  Venturing into the South Beach area we took in the sites: Lincoln Street (an upscale pedestrian mall), the famous Miami Beach, and the Art Deco district of Miami.  Joe and Connie on Chesapeake were alongside and the six of us had a great visit.

Lincoln Pedestrian Mall

Tourists at Miami Beach
Left to Right:  Susan, Jeff, Jim, Mimi, Connie, Joe

Miami Beach.  Note the Art Deco beach structures

The start of the Art Deco District of South Miami Beach

After Jim and Mimi moved on to visit with other friends we moved to an anchorage at Oleta State Park.  This is a beautiful spot with clear green water and if you didn't look up and see all the tall buildings surrounding it you'd swear you were in the tropical wilderness.  We spent several days here, swimming, hanging out and just plain relaxing on the nice days.  We also had a couple more "wind event" days where it was incredibly windy and stormy out, with occasional tornado watches/warnings issued. For the first time ever our anchor dragged a bit as the strong winds rotated from north through east and then all the way around to northwest, a rotation of about 270 degrees in twenty-four hours with wind speeds up to forty miles an hour. Hang on to your hat!! We reset the anchor just to feel secure and it held like a charm.

Dinghy 'sploring through the mangroves.

Yup, we went through that culvert,
 Hope the tide is not on the way up or we might not get back through it!

Swimming off the boat.
 Jeff was diving in off the flybridge but I couldn't catch it on camera

My knight in shining armour coming to pick me up on shore after a walk.