Bill and Boop's Great Adventure: Mansions in Miami

January 3 - 10

We left Vero Beach on January 3 to go down to Ft. Pierce and Lake Worth. This is a common jumping off point to go to the Bahamas. In fact, we ran into our Canadian friends that we'd spent New Year's Eve with in Lake Worth (Palm Beach). They were planning on crossing the next day. Instead, we went offshore toward Miami.

We have new traveling buddies. Kevin and Roxann are on Moonraker, a 38 foot Island Packet. We ran into them in Vero Beach. Turns out, they are from our home port of Battery Park in Sandusky, Ohio. In fact, they were only a few docks down from us. However, we had NEVER met them because they usually went up during the week and we went up on weekends. Bill recognized their boat and went over to say hi. They are a ton of fun and get this...their last name is REED!!!!! What are the odds? They are our new BFFs (Best Friends Forever). We have had a ball traveling with them. Bill and Kevin are two peas in a pod. I've never seen two people be so similar. They have a great time together and are both obsessed with sailing. Too funny. Anyway, we traveled together to Miami and arrived at night. I have no idea how Bill figured out the navigation lights against the lights of the city, but he did it. We anchored the first night behind the Venetian Causeway in a very protected harbor.

Roxann and Kevin took this great photo of us sailing into Miami at sunset.

Kevin and Roxann...what a cute picture!

Miami Beach. Much more crowded and not as pretty as Vero...but hey, it's a beach!

The second night in Miami we went into Sunset Lake which was tucked in behind a bunch of million dollar mansions. Beautiful, huh?

Another beautiful home on the channel.

This is a mansion with the million dollar yacht and fishing boat in front. We anchored right in front of this home. The police came on the second day to tell us we had a 7 day limit. No problem, we planned on leaving the next day. They warned us that the guy in this house was a VERY vocal against people anchoring. He'd called the police the moment we'd dropped our anchor. They told us to ignore him if he put bright lights on us or played loud music. We just laughed it off. Turns out, that evening, Bill had taken the dinghy in to empty the trash. I was down below chopping veggies for dinner. I heard him come back and looked out the port to see the sky was black. At that instant a huge gust of wind hit us and dislodged our anchor!!!! We were being blown toward his million dollar yacht and home VERY quickly. AKKKK!!!! Bill started the engine and told me to take the wheel. I am VERY proud to report that I stayed very calm and put the engine into full gear into the wind. Bill pulled up the rest of the anchor and I kept the boat into the wind and off this guy's boat. In the meantime, Mr. Million Dollar Mansion guy was literally jumping up and down and waving his arms and screeming at us not to hit his boat. DUH! Does he think I WANT to hit his boat???? Eventually, the wind calmed down and we were able to reset the anchor. We had a good laugh about the whole thing. But I have a feeling Mr. Million Dollar Mansion had to take a pill or two to calm down.

On January 8 we left Miami and anchored behind Pumpkin Key, just off Key Largo. It was the prettiest anchorage yet. This photo is of a resort that was on a private island. Very exclusive.