Waiting for a weather window

 

Yesterday we moved over to an anchorage call "No Name Harbor" at Biscayne Key to wait for the right weather to make our way to the Bahamas. When we see a good weather window we will head south 20 miles to Elliot Key the day before, and leave from there. We are looking for a wind from the south or west or no wind at all. We also cant go if there is a north or east wind because the waves would be to rough. The Gulf Stream has a lot of current so the trick is to start 25 miles south of where you want to go and point straight across. As you sail straight across the current will push you north. So if your sailing at 5 knots and your going 50 miles you have to allow for a 25 mile drift north. You will also know when you enter the Gulf Stream by the water temperature. The Stream is warmer water so we watch the temperature as we sail over. When we get into the stream we will see the temperature rising and when it starts to fall we know we are past the middle. As we made our way here to No Name Harbor we noticed some homes on stilts in the middle of the ocean. So that means it's time for;
                                  So Here's Interesting Tid bits, SHIT for short

We saw these houses in the middle of the ocean and it's called stiltsville. So here's some information about that.

Stiltsville is a group of wood stilt houses located one mile south of Cape Florida on sand banks of the Safety Valve on the edge of Biscayne Bay in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The structures stand on wood or reinforced concrete pilings, generally ten feet above the shallow water which varies from one to three feet deep at low tide.

 

Party Central

Stiltsville in the 1940s and 1950s was a popular place where lawyers, bankers, politicians, and other moneyed, well-connected Miamians came to drink, relax and kick back. Law enforcement periodically visited the area, looking for vice activities.

 

Jimmy Ellenburg house

Florida's Governor LeRoy Collins (1955–1961) was a frequent visitor during the 1950s, a guest of Jimmy Ellenburg at his house in the flats. Ellenburg established his barge near Crawfish Eddie in 1939 and was known as the unofficial mayor of Stiltsville

From the 1950s to the 1960s, Stiltsville's style matured from ramshackle to lodge, some with architectural styles, including the "A-frame" house; the Leshaw House, with its distinctive Mansard roof; and the uniquely shaped Baldwin, Sessions & Shaw House, which was featured in a national ad campaign for Pittsburgh Paints. These three houses, as well as the Ellenburg house, were among the seven buildings included in the 2003 Stiltsville Trust. Nearly all of the structures included full wrap-around porches. At its peak in 1960, there were 27 buildings.

 

At the beginning of 1992, there were 14 "campsites" with structures present at Stiltsville. After Hurricane Andrew struck on August 24, 1992, only seven buildings survived and were still standing by July 1, 1999

Life Magazine featured another article on Stiltsville, 57 years after the original. The November, 1998 issue included an article entitled, STILTSVILLE: The residents of a fading Florida community make a stand to save it. Today no one lives in the houses but the buildings have been handed over to the National Park Service preserve.

The park service added hurricane strapping to protect the structures from wind damage in major storms. Caretakers still perform basic maintenance on their former weekend retreats, but the Stiltsville buildings are owned by the National Park Service and have been secured and posted with no trespassing signs. Access to the buildings by non-trust members is by permission of the park's superintendent 

 

There's some interesting SHIT!

 

 

Daytona Beach

When we stayed in Daytona Beach we could hear the cars racing from far away. Daytona is famous for the Daytona 500 race in February and for Bike week in March. I didn't know that in the 1900's Louis Chevrolet and Henry Ford would use the beach area for racing and testing the new engines. They liked the hard packed sand and the big open wide area.

There's some interesting SHIT!