Week 32
Week 32
Feb. 16-22 2026
Monday
We left Stock island and traveled 27 nautical miles to Bahia Honda state park. It's basically just a U shaped wall in a small harbor. It does have electricity and water. When we pulled in there was a boat in our spot. It took a minute to figure that out.
We noticed a lot of trucks and trailers in the parking lot. Turns out they're filming for the t.v. series Bad monkey today here in the park. The series is based in the Keys with Vince Vaughn.
There's a lot of vegetation in this state park from the Caribbean. We walked up to the highway that is no longer in use. It's called Flagler's overseas railroad and highway. He built the railroad connecting all the keys in a bridge and then, Later the state built a highway on top of the railway. A hurricane knocked some of it down. It was not repaired. Another highway bridge was built later that was wider and could handle more commercial traffic.
Tuesday
We had to wait until 9:30 this morning for high tide to get out of the narrow inlet with skinny water before we could leave. We traveled 62 nautical miles to an anchorage near Key Largo. To get to the anchorage, we had to weave through these narrow mangrove alleys. It was really pretty and cool. We had a longer 7.5 hour driving day today. We got a lot of footage for our YouTube video of this beautiful area.
Wednesday
We left our anchorage and drove 2.5 hours to the Biscayne National Park dock. We only spent about an hour. It's a bucket list item though and is hard to get to. So I'm super excited we got to go. The water is crystal clear and magnificent . See our videos. The wind was too high to go do any snorkeling out on the reef. The Biscayne national park is the furthest north point of this Florida reef. It's a newer park established on 1980 to preserve the reef and prevent development.
We continued our drive, but midway through Ed could hear a sound in the engine. It's kind of a grinding metal sound. He recognized the sound as a bad pulley bearing. He opened the engine compartment and could see we have a loose pulley for one of the belts, with a bad bearing and it’s wobbling and grinding. We dropped our speed to barely above idling to reduce the stress on the pulley. Ed called several marinas but we were unable to get in one. No mobile mechanics even answered their phones. One didn’t return a voicemail. We anchored across the bay from Miami for the night. We crossed a total of 47 nautical miles today.
We held our last institute for this block tonight. We have loved this Spanish speaking class! The lights of Miami tonight were beautiful.
Thursday
We limped across the Biscayne bay barely faster than idle 4 nautical miles to Dinner Key marina. It's one of the biggest in the country.
We got a rental car and lunch. We spent 3 hours looking for engine parts. Ed dropped me at the boat, worked a little and found he needed more stuff. I didn't want to go this time. I watched a movie. We finally found the part at Cummins in Atlanta. They shipped it free to Miami Lakes for us. Later this evening We went for a walk a along the shoreline on the waterfront her in Coconut grove. It was a beautiful night.
Friday
We took a walk to the coconut grove shopping district. It's very nice. It's one of the oldest neighborhoods in Miami. We are on dinner key. It's not a key any more. It was filled in in the early 1900s. I think after WWI. There was a naval air station on dinner key, one of the oldest in the U.S. now it is the City Hall. Miami City Hall is on the waterfront at the Marina.
We spent 5 hours driving up to North Miami to pick up the Fan hub pulley bearing assembly part that Ed ordered from Atlanta, Ga. Then we continued to drive up to Fort Lauderdale to a marine electric store to get a new circuit breaker.
Ed spent the rest of the evening with only a break for dinner, fixing the engine. It's so great that he can fix things. You need to be part mechanic, plumber, and electrician to live on a boat. Otherwise you have to pay hundreds or thousands for someone else, and wait many days, which costs a lot more in marina fees!!! We call the Boats bucks. A boat buck is $1000. So if it costs 6 bucks to fix your boat that is $6000. Boat stands for: Bring On Another Thousand.
Saturday
We took the rental car back this morning. We waited till after 10 for the tide to almost be at the peak to leave the marina. Biscayne bay is shallow. In the Miami harbor we saw 9 cruise ships docked.
We were told to avoid going through Miami or anywhere on the Gold coast, on the weekend because of all the boats, but we lost some days staying at the marina waiting for parts and we needed to move onward. We have to be in Savannah, Georgia by March 29th to get Rachelle and fam! Yippie!. We braved all the boaters and left any way.
We traveled 40.7 nautical miles to Pompano Beach are Lakes Santa Barbara anchorage. We had to get through Fort Lauderdale. Most of the time we had to go very slow. It's narrow and there's manatees so they have slow speed zones. We had to go under a lot bridges, about half we had to wait for them to be raised. We didn't want to unstep the mast. It's easier to just wait. We were amazed that way into the night, there's still boaters zooming around. It was a rough night with boats zipping past, wakes, and loud music until 345am. Miami doesn’t sleep!
Sunday
We couldn't get to church today, since we were in an anchorage. Ed was thinking we should get up early, pull up anchor and go find a marina and uber to a church. But then he was afraid to wake up Allison. He thought, history sure would be different if Lehi was afraid to wake up Sariah to tell her about his dream! We continued up the ICW. There are so many bridges. At the bridge at boca Raton it was only 9 feet , so many small boats had to wait for it to be lifted. I counted 23 boats waiting. We pulled up behind Trump’s Mar A Largo and took a few pictures. We then pulled up to the city dock in West Palm Beach. It's free and you can stay until 11 p.m. We wanted to get off the boat to just go for a walk. It's a nice city. We went to get a salad and saw a young 34 you girl sobbing. Ed went to talk to her and she was desperate and alone and just wanted a hug. We talked to Izzy for awhile and made sure she had a safe place to go and then gave her our cellphone number. She just kept hugging us and telling us that we are like the parents she never had. Then we anchored in the bay by the dock for the night. We only went 30 nautical miles today. It was slow going because of the so many bridges.
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