Liveaboards

Miami Venetian Island's anchorage is a gateway to the underworld of Miami liveaboards. Several boats stay there all year round bobbing gently on their moorings in a slow dance with each change of the tide. Their owners, mostly single man past forty, made their homes on the water, trading with passing cruisers and finding odd jobs around the town. They don't really sail anywhere – staying on the boat is simply rent free. All of them obviously know each other very well. This interesting group centers on a local Yankee dealer who is leasing some garage space from where he conducts his business. With some help from his friends, he trades in used boat gear with transients like us. They are selling all kinds of effects to the cruisers they recruit from the anchorage. The way it played out in our case was that after nerve-wracking anchoring in swift current, among tightly packed together small boats we received a visit from a gentlemen staying in a tiny cabin of eighteen footer anchored nearby. Now, we know what small boats look like. Our twenty-five footer is not an Ocean liner either, but seeing this considerable man climbing into his cabin with all of his metal detectors was something else. Harold’s beach combing business takes him all over US in search of lost watches, rings, signets and jewelry. He was the first one to point us to the garage. Soon after, few other perennial anchorage dwellers were advising us on our dare need for this or the other item that luckily for us was available from one of their buddies. It was always the same buddy and soon we found out those items were on the consignment from the very people giving us plenty of good advice mixed with horror stories and warnings what may happen if we don’t purchase this essential chain, anchor, radio, snorkel, fishing rod, you name it. Some of this advice was indeed friendly and beneficial; some of it was solely to propel local Yankee dealer economy. You can acquire some hardware or charts that way if you know what you want and how much you want to pay for it, but few have left the garage with stuff they really need, paying for it less than a top dollar. In this particular place the network of local liveaboards work together to milk your greens quite efficiently. You have the chance to purchase some gear before heading up to the Bahamas if you are really desperate but don't expect any amazing deals.

We had some hair-raising moment when one night we came back to find our boat wrapped around another’s boat anchor line just meters from the low-lying bridge. Thankfully there was no damage to any boat and with some help from a local chap we were able to untangle and move far away from the bridge and other boats. Before MacDonald’s served their last breakfast most of Miami heard of our last night adventure recommending us getting a bigger anchor and extra chain from a local “boater.”

That would end our Miami Beach adventures. We are off to Florida Keys where a friend of a friend agreed to keep our boat at his private dock while we enjoy a couple of weeks on land celebrating Thanksgiving with our friends. We left Miami in the afternoon just in time to see an overwhelming number of various law enforcement boats on the water patrolling the harbor. There was a noise coming from the city. I waved down a sheriff’s boat and we found out there is a riot downtown stemming from anti-globalization demonstration. Back in a day I had my share of anti-communist demonstrations in my native Poland. Don't tell my mom...

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