Three views of No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne
Jan 2 After 2 nights in lovely Hurricane Harbor in the middle of Key Biscayne (a small key, about a 35 minute bike ride from end to end), we moved to No Name Harbor on the southern end of the island. At No Name we would be in a State Park with restrooms, a self-serve pumpout station, bike trails, and two small restaurants. At Hurricane Harbor we had no landing spot to leave our dinghy, only a small bridge to drop someone off at. The homes around the harbor were beautiful and sunsets were magnificent.
Our first night in No Name Harbor we decided to take advantage of the restaurant right at the head of the harbor, Boater’s Grill. There was live music, the food was excellent, most of the patrons were Spanish-speaking, and before we left we joined half of the diners and all of the wait staff in dancing and a conga line.
Most of the tables at Boater’s Grill are on a porch so music wafts across the small harbor. The next day, Mariachi music started in the late afternoon. Meanwhile we had called our daughter Tammy in Santa Fe to find out the Spanish vocabulary we would need to politely get our waiter’s attention next time (although they all spoke English as well as Spanish).
Jan. 5 While running the engine at idle on Sunday afternoon it suddenly started acting erratically and then died. Ken worked on it and decided that if we could get the parts, we should replace the ancient fuel pump and while we were at it we should also get a new alternator. He called around on Monday morning and found a Perkins engine dealer in NW Miami. By 11 am we were on a bus to Miami and then metro-railed and bused some more to the location. We got the parts and lugged them back, reversing our morning trip and successfully returned at about 5:30 pm. Of course we needed some sustenance then so stopped at Boater’s Grill for sangria.
The next day Ken installed the parts, but there was still no response from the engine. And because of running our lights, refrigerator and trying to start the engine, the batteries were getting dangerously low. To make a long story short Ken got a promise from a local mechanic to come on Thursday morning to look at the engine and borrowed a generator from a boat in the harbor to help get the batteries back to partial power.
Barry and Susan on SWAN came back to see us in No Name Harbor. They promised to stay until they could help us move our engine-less boat to the seawall in the harbor where the mechanic asked us to have the boat. Moving RISING TIDE caused the highlight of the week -- getting caught in a squall while just reaching a curved part of the seawall and having to tie-off quickly in a shallow area there. The curve of the concrete wall and the shallowness caused us to tip dangerously as the tide went out and the boat hull leaned toward the concrete. We had every fender possible on the seawall side of the boat, and we had an anchor pulling us (hopefully) away from the wall as the tide continued to go out. On top of this drama, another boat in the anchorage started dragging anchor in the squall and the occupants were down below and didn’t realize what was happening. Susan noticed first and Barry took up the call to alert the crew (four French Canadians). All four Canadians were soon yelling in French as all four of us were yelling in English and their boat was about to hit the seawall about 40 ft. from our boat. We got their fenders and lines tied on pretty quickly and they only suffered a few scrapes; it could have been worse!
Jan. 8 At 5:45 am, about an hour and a half before sunrise, we got up to reposition RISING TIDE now that the tide had come in. Miraculously out of the dark came a rowboat with Barry and Susan. They made easy work of getting us back to deeper water along the wall.
Later in the day, the mechanics gone and the engine several parts lighter as they found what needed rebuilding and cleaning, we again quietly moved RISING TIDE back to be on anchor near the mangroves on the other side of the harbor. Again we were helped by our associate crew Barry and Susan. They then sailed out on their quest to find a source of cooking heat -- propane -- back on the mainland.
Even though we are most likely going to be waiting almost another week for the parts to be reinstalled we are lucky to be where we are. The weather has been perfect every day (except for the squall) and we are within biking distance of most supplies we need. This town has an interesting mix of Floridians, Cuban-Americans, tourists from all over the world, boaters, displaced New Englanders, and tennis players (the tennis center here is the site of the fifth largest professional tennis tournament in the world, although in fact checking this I see that the Sony Erickson Tournament which is supposed to be the one held here is now held in Qatar). The ocean beach was voted in the top 10 in the country. From our anchor we can see large iguanas, manatees, dolphins chasing fish, ibises.
Jan. 10 Today we received a phone call from Justin in Germany (he is on his way home -- yay!!) as we biked to breakfast on the other side of town and joined almost 100 bicycle riders who were using the outdoor restaurant as a pit stop on a Saturday morning ride. Ken had rented a mountain bike the day before at the State Park and they nicely let him keep it for 24 hours (not just the one day that you usually get with a rental). We had gone on a bicycle exploration yesterday on the other end of Key Biscayne and onto the next key, Virginia Key.
This week has been a roller-coaster but it has been made reasonably comfortable by friends, location and weather. We may even be traveling to Miami again on Monday to use up some of our layover time!
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