Last we left you, we were headed up from Boot Key Harbor towards Miami.

I didn’t get much sleep anchored at Rodriguez Key. It took us two times to get the anchor set, which almost never happens, and I wasn’t fully convinced it set the second time. So when a thunderstorm popped up overnight, and the wind changed directions, I stayed up in the cockpit to make sure we weren’t going to be blown ashore.

By 4:30am the storms had cleared, I’d made coffee, started the engine, and raised the anchor. If I’m going to be awake, we might as well get moving! Good thing Allison can sleep through the engine noise.

We were headed just far enough north that the SE winds allowed us to actually *sail*–not motor–a good bit of the way up the channel to No Name Harbor. We had a great 48 mile ride, averaging over 6 knots.

We eventually got into some 3-5′ swells, causing the boat to rock side to side a good bit–Allison calls it the “weeble wobbles”–but it was managable.

No Name Harbor is actually a very small, extremely protected harbor surrounded by a park. It was a little too protected for us…and being surrounded by a concrete seawall freaked me out a little. I could just envision dragging anchor and getting slammed into concrete.

We chose to anchor just south of the harbor in 15′ of water where the steady breeze blowing provided much needed relief from the heat. We had the anchor down just before 1pm and took a swim.

Allison put on her mission control headset and went to work while I tried to nap. It felt like we were on the edge of the civilized world–uninhabited keys to the south of us, hundreds of high-rises to the north. We were both shocked by how huge Miami was…so many tall buildings!

Feeling the sea breeze and seeing such clear water for the second day in a row, we were both quite thrilled to be back on the move. I’ll be surprised if you see Selah back in Marathon anytime soon.