Gateway to Heaven

Perched on the tip of Florida is the US’s southernmost city, a beloved tropical region, and a gateway to the Caribbean and beyond.

Miami is the United State's youngest city, having been established in 1896. In its early days, access was only by sea, which is still the case for the many sailors heading south on the 3000-mile Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) that safely brings boaters from chilly Boston in north-eastern USA. The sea dominates this low-lying region, with the Atlantic on its eastern seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Hemmed into the west by the myriad waterways of the Everglades swamp, the region is a natural wilderness and very volatile, prone to changeable weather when hurricanes arrive.

Jutting out between these mighty waterways are the world-famous Florida Keys, a boating paradise. Sailors use Miami and its adjoining city Miami Beach as a base before heading the 90 miles east to the Bahamas, while others enjoy island hopping down the famous Keys to Key West. Both Key West and Miami are also major cruise ship terminals, so for those of us lucky enough to sail its waters, there is plenty of shipping to watch for.

THE CAPITAL OF LATIN AMERICA

My friend Larry is a Miami Beach local and keeps his sailboat in Key Largo, which is the nearest to the mainland. When we go there to board his Sabre 34, it feels like a different world from mainland Florida, such is the variety of settings in this amazing region. Here, there are few people and little traffic apart from the road snaking across the islands. Instead, you can hear the roar of sports fishing boats chasing the marlin, just like local resident Ernest Hemingway once did.

Miami is a vibrant city often referred to as the ‘capital of Latin American’ because of its dominant Cuban and Caribbean demographic. Downtown Miami is dominated by skyscrapers and has one of the tallest skylines in the USA. The buildings overlook the long, narrow and shallow Biscayne Bay. On its wide streets, people whizz by on electric bikes and scooters. Bicycles are also popular because the city is flat and has numerous cycleways. I click my Uber app to rent my own Uber scooter to shoot between the boat shows, the main reason I'm in town. 

Three boat shows run simultaneously during winter in February: The Superyacht Show, The Boat Show, and The Yacht Show. Miami and its nearby sister city of Fort Lauderdale are popular places to buy a yacht for voyaging around the Caribbean and Central America. Miami is also a major air hub, so it's only a short one-and-a-half-hour plane ride to my house in Central America — my base for sailing and writing about this fascinating region. I first came to the region 30 years ago and its many attractions have kept me coming back. One of the major drawcards is the average daytime winter temperatures of 27 degrees that allow for comfortable sailing. Being in the tropics, Miami has a wet and dry season; and of note to sailors is the summer hurricane season. 

Roaming around downtown is easy because there are three different rail networks and free trolley buses. I'm thankful for my time living in Spain and my ability to speak basic Spanish — the friendly locals in suburbs like Little Havana and Little Haiti enjoy friendly banter. You'll find some of the world's best rum here, with my particular favourites being the pungent and slightly sweet Guatemalan and Venezuelan varieties, and the more affordable Flor de Cana from Nicaragua.

Little Havana's jazz bars are another attraction in the area. Mireya, the waitress at my local bar, came to the area as a young refugee and sends money home when she can. “This week my father couldn't get gasoline for his car because all Havana's gas stations were empty,” she tells me.

Nightlife abounds throughout the city and since I'm living on Miami Beach, the nearby dance clubs are my locale. I watch dance shows, listen to heartwarming Latino singing, and chat with some of the many visitors who flock from all over the world to sample it.

BOATING THE EVERGLADES

Escaping Miami after a busy schedule of work, we fill up my friend Larry's white Ford Mustang for the long drive south-west, across the Everglades. The Highway 9336 is the only crossing of this vast wilderness that was once 4000 square miles, until the white man came. Since then, waves of politicians and developers have tried to shape this vast region throughout the centuries. 

The Indigenous Seminole Indians withdrew here in the face of white incursion. I met one of them, Jason, whose trade is carving ceremonial necklaces for the tourists. “My tribe, made of Creeks and other escapees from the whites, lived deep in the swamps, but now I prefer to live in Miami,” he laughs. 

All those years ago, the Indigenous were somewhat protected by their islands of tree plantations, known as hammock, surrounded by crocodile- and insect-infested swamps. But many were tragically killed as new settlers forged modern Florida. The famous railway tycoon Harry Flagler tried to drain the swamp, before realising the enormity and the implications of the project. He then turned his attention to building the first railroad across the Florida Keys. The Labor Day hurricane in 1935 destroyed it and killed 400 people. Road builders then used much of it to connect the Keys. The Everglades is actually a moving waterway that flows south and its vegetation runs down to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. Looking out from the Mustang's window, it's obvious that it's dry season — the swamps are brown and the man-made channels are low. 

The Mustang's roar subsides as we slow to turn off to the Flamingo Visitors Centre, where I note a sign saying, “Don't feed the vultures”. We board a boat and within minutes are face-to-face with a 10-foot crocodile amid the creepers and thick vegetation. The scene is reminiscent of Australia's Kakadu National Park. Most spectacular is the birdlife — waterfowl, heath birds and birds of prey. A mighty American bald eagle swoops past as a white egret wisely retreats into the shade of the mangroves. One part of the Everglades waterway runs north-west and has been developed into a canoe trail. Camping on its series of elevated platforms all the way to Everglades City is on my bucket list.

“Ideally you should paddle from the south because the current runs that way,” my friendly boat guide, Juanita, advises. She came from Puerto Rico as an immigrant child with her mother to enjoy all the benefits of American life, including a college degree, she tells me.

SAILING TO THE KEYS

Escaping mainland Florida is what sailors like me enjoy doing, so I was pleased to cast off from Miami. Getting intimate with the Keys and the nearby Bahamas is best done on a shoal draft boat, or a lifting keeler; or as I did on a new Seawind 1260 catamaran from Sailaway Charters. All Sailaway boats are privately owned and put into charter. This allows owners to fly directly into Miami or Key West from major American airports to explore this fascinating region of low-lying islands and pale blue waters.

As Miami is the gateway to the Keys and beyond, there are plenty of marinas, including the one on the island of Key Biscayne where I boarded our charter boat. Crandon Park Marina charged my friends on a 35 foot monohull USD$79 per night for casual marina berthing, but the cheaper option is to use the swinging mooring in its sheltered bay, then take an Uber across the causeway to downtown Miami for shopping. For liveaboards, there's also a hurricane shelter nearby. The storm season generally runs from June until November and the last one in August 2019 — Hurricane Dorian — destroyed much of the northern Bahamas with 185mph winds. My friend Larry knows the storm drill well, saying, “We run for the mangroves with the boats and spider-tie them across the mangroves!”

After finishing my boat show work, we departed Crandon Park Marina on Key Biscayne to sail through the sparkling waters that lap against downtown Miami. Sheltered from the Atlantic seaboard by the sister city of Miami Beach, the area is reminiscent of where I keep my own boat, Sydney Harbour. But whereas we enjoy deep water, Biscayne Bay is shallow, so the marked channel south was religiously followed during our departure.

With full sail our Seawind sped south into the Florida Straits, using the B&G plotter to guide us along the relatively shallow 50-foot contour which minimises the impact of the north flowing Gulf Stream. Around us the low-lying islands hid behind mangroves which petered out at the shores of the Cape Florida lighthouse. This is where we began our 10-mile open water sail to the first of the Keys, Elliott. To starboard were strange apparitions: houses elevated from the water, from a former eccentric community known as Stiltsville. Renowned as dens of illicit activities, hurricanes caused this unusual community to be abandoned, leaving a dangerous bunch of obstacles for night-time sailors like ourselves. 

Later in the evening, we pass my crewmate Charlie's home. Charlie is what Americans call a 'snowbird' because he escapes to Florida every winter. “The diving is the main reason I spend the season down here in an RV park right on the water,” he tells me over a beer. His low-lying RV parking spot is unlikely to survive a hurricane water surge, but one blessing for mariners is the short tidal ranges of only a few feet (measured like the French do in Tidal Coefficients).

Our charts and pilot books show many features of the shallow warm waters, including wrecks of gold-laden Spanish galleons, and the various marine parks are a scuba diving mecca. There's even an enormous bronze statue of Jesus to dive on at Key Largo, named Christ of the Deep.

The shallow waters allow easy anchoring, but marinas abound on the north-east side of the Keys. Passing Marathon Key, I watch the headlights along US1 highway as cars speed across the Seven Mile Bridge. Taking a car along the 42 road bridges and lush islands is one of the world's iconic drives. Rest areas are mostly on the south-going lanes, where I can stop to gaze at the mangrove-strewn islands dotted with fishing shacks, small hamlets and powerboats zipping under the low lying bridges to fish Tarpon on the Gulf of Mexico.

Arriving at Key West at dawn is spectacular as the azure blue sky descends across an endlessly clear horizon. Daring to jut out into the might of the Gulf Stream and a mere 90 miles from Cuba, Key West is very much the end of the road, or the beginning of a new one for sailors navigating south, down the iconic 'islands in the stream' as described by one of its most famous former residents, Ernest Hemingway. 

Getting here, by sailing south-west from Miami along this glistening 125-mile chain of islands that make up the Florida Keys, is a fascinating voyage in the wake of that flawed American writer and many other Gringo conquistadors that sought to pacify this region of shifting sandbanks and storm-pummelled beaches, where few monuments to men outlast the hurricane season. 

MORE INFO

Tourism visitflorida.com

Pilotage cruiserswiki.org/wiki/Florida_State

Charts Navionics or use free NOAA e-charts on OpenCPN

Marinas marinas.com/browse/marina/US/FL

Sailing Season December to May, ideally

Travel Miami International Airport and Key West Airport (130-mile drive from Miami)

Power 110AC

Charter sailawaykw.com