12-27-18
It is currently Thursday morning here and I am safely anchored off downtown West Palm Beach. The wind has been blowing pretty good overnight and is forecast to continue to blow stiffly from the East through Friday evening. It has been blowing 20-25 with gusts to 30 as forecast, although it should start to slack off a bit on Friday.
From Saturday on, the forecast is 10-15 knots or less from SE and my current plan is that I am going to make my way to Nassau via Miami, then Bimini, and Chub Cay.
The current plan is to leave here on Saturday, head out the inlet and make my way down the coast to Miami. I was debating whether to go outside or stay in the Intracoastal but when I started looking at the Intracoastal from here, it was bridge after bridge after bridge. Also, about midway through Miami, one of the bridges is only 56′ rather that the standard of 65′ that all the rest of the bridges are. I thing I could make it but it is one more vote against going inside.
At 5kn, it is about 12 hours to Government Cut off Miami or 15 hours to get to Key Biscayne. If I should run into any major problems along the way, Port Everglades at Ft Lauderdale is at the 8 hour mark and this would give me an emergency harbor if needed. My plan is to get to the anchorage area on the West side of Key Biscayne through Cape Florida Channel on Sunday morning.