Dania Beach Marina

“Come walk with me along the beach, where sunsets seem within reach, we’ll search for treasures in the sand, as we walk hand in hand.” —Unknown

We began our morning on the flybridge enjoying our view of Boca Chita. This is a great spot and we probably would have stayed longer, but a front is moving in tonight and another one on Saturday so we needed to move on while we could get across Biscayne Bay.

The Miami skyline is beautiful as you cruise up Biscayne Bay and it looks wonderful from the water, but I have no desire to go ashore for a visit. Sometimes things are just better viewed from the outside. The port of Miami is a busy place with lots to see and a lot of boat to avoid…as pretty as the port is…it feels wonderful when we leave it in our wake.

We spent almost a week in Hollywood Beach in 2011 and enjoyed the area, so that was our destination today. Unfortunately the marinas in the area were full; there are a few places to anchor, but no shore access for our dinghy…so we moved up to Dania Beach. We’re at a nice marina just across the street from the beach and within biking distance of lots of shops and restaurants. After getting settled we rode our bikes along the boardwalk to Hollywood Beach. We enjoyed our afternoon visiting with a few people and watching the world go by. We’ll probably be here a few days as the weather settles down again.

Miami skyline

Miami from the water

A little hole in the wall kind of place on the ICW in Hollywood Beach…looks like a fun place.

We saw this catamaran in Hollywood Beach, it looks like it’s from a Star War movie 

Dania Beach Pier – located right across the street from our boat.

Hollywood Beach

Biscayne National Park

“At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough.”—Toni Morrison

I’ve read and seen pictures of Boca Chita for years. It’s a beautiful little spot that is part of Biscayne National Park. Biscayne National Park is within sight of downtown Miami. The park protects one of the most extensive coral reef tracts in the world, the longest stretch of mangrove forest on the east coast, the clear, shallow waters of Biscayne Bay and the northernmost Florida Keys. Ninety-five percent of the park’s 172,971 acres is water.

Mark C. Honeywell, a wealthy industrialist and his wife purchased the Boca Chita Key in 1937. They built many structures on the island between 1937-1940 including a chapel, a lighthouse, a pavilion for holding picnic, a generator room and a garage. The Honeywells and their guests would come from Miami in their luxury yachts to enjoy picnics and parties held on the island. The canon located near the lighthouse would be fired to welcome their guests. Honeywell’s wife died before a house could be built on the island and he sold it in 1945. It became part of Biscayne National Park in 1990 and is one of its favorite islands. We heard it can be a loud obnoxious place to be on the weekend, loaded with partiers and music that is played late into the night, but our experience was just the opposite…it was very quiet and relaxing. We enjoyed hiking around the island, walking on the beach and looking at the lighthouse. We had the island almost to ourselves…definitely one of our favorite new places.

Boca Chita Lighthouse is used as the symbol for Biscayne National park. It is 65-foot and was built in the 1930s. Honeywell built it with the objective of using it as a navigation guide for his business operations on the island. However, a few hours after the lighthouse was lighted and commissioned, it was closed down, as he had failed to inform and obtain permission from the U.S. Coast Guard about the purpose of his project. The U.S. Coast Guard considered it a navigation hazard, as it was not charted. The top deck of the lighthouse provides scenic views of the bay, ocean, Miami, Key Biscayne, and the skyline of the Miami Beach.

The view from the top of Boca Chita Lighthouse

If you look very close you can see the Miami skyline on the left side of this picture

Boca Chita Lighthouse

Looking into the harbor from the lighthouse

The Chapel

Looking across Biscayne Bay to Miami

Treasures from the sea

One of the best sunsets we’ve ever seen

Blackwater Sound – Anchorage

“Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.” ―Robert Henri

We’re moving up the Keys. Our day started in Islamorada enjoying our coffee on the flybridge…our favorite way to begin our day. Our next stop was Key Largo. We anchored in Blackwater Sound and took our dingy through the cut to Largo Sound and John Pennekamp State Park. Pennekamp offers snorkeling trips and glass bottom boat rides out to the reefs, but the park also provides mooring balls at the best sights so private boats can stop and snorkel. We’d love to visit some of those sights one day, but the Atlantic was a little too rough and the water a little too chilly for us today.

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was established in 1963 as the first undersea park in the United States. The park and the adjacent Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, it covers approximately 178 nautical square miles of coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove swamps. It extends 3 miles into the Atlantic Ocean and is approximately 25 miles in length. These areas were established to protect and preserve a portion of the only living coral reef in the continental United States.

We wandered around the park and went through the visitor center and aquarium, it would be a great place to visit in a RV but we both were glad we anchored in Blackwater Sound instead of staying in the park.  After visiting the park we did a little more exploring in the sound before we stopped at Sundowners for an afternoon snack. We spent the evening enjoying a nice dinner onboard with a great view of the sunset. It felt wonderful to be swinging on the hook.

Our morning view

The Marvin D. Adams Waterway that runs between Blackwater Sound and Largo Sound

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

A few of the tanks at the aquarium