Florida – Sailing, Sunsets, and Scooters in the Biscayne Bay

Sailing the Biscayne Bay

The Biscayne Bay is one of Florida’s most spectacular sailing destinations and hosts thousands of visitors from all over the world each year. The water is absolutely gorgeous changing from a beautiful turquoise blue color to a teal green color as you reach different areas of this magical lagoon. If you’re heading to the Florida Keys, this is an excellent area to stop if you want to enjoy a day in Miami, need to provision, work on a boat project, explore nature, or just have a relaxing weekend. Obviously you should also go sailing!

After transiting through the busy Port of Miami, we made our way under the Rickenbacker Bridge to find the beauty of the Biscayne Bay. With little wind, a regatta of brightly colored spinnakers greeted us on the horizon. But after leaving the narrow ICW and constricting bridges, we immediately turned to the wind and lifted our sail to join the fun. Yachts of all sizes and types float along enjoying the open, protected water of the Biscayne Bay.  We sailed joyously before approaching the channel to Dinner Cay Marina and made way to our mooring for the next couple days. 

Coconut Grove 

We first stopped at Coconut Grove so that we could take care of a couple errands and enjoy the nearby CocoWalk. It was nice to walk around the town and do a little bit of last minute Christmas Shopping. In the town there are plenty of stores to shop in, restaurants to eat at, bars to enjoy an adult beverage, and all sorts of other entertainment.  We especially liked stopping for a beer at Lokal but didn’t make time for too much spending. We also LOVED being able to ride our scooters all around the town. 

Instead, we took the dogs to one of the nearby islands to run around and witness some of the after effects of Hurriane Irma. This island used to be a main picnic island for the nearby Dinner Key Marina but has been left in shambles from such high winds and high surge. It’s interesting to see how harsh Mother Nature can be sometimes. 

Bill Baggs State Park 

Our second anchorage in the area was No Name Harbor in Bill Baggs State Park. This absolutely gorgeous state park is exactly what we needed to slow down and enjoy the scenery a bit longer. We loved this area for its beautiful nature walks, stunning sunsets, and pristine water. There are piers to fish from, bike paths to ride throughout, and restaurants to enjoy on both ends of the park – Boater’s Grill Restaurant & Lighthouse Cafe. It also houses one of the oldest structures in the Miami area, the Cape Florida Lighthouse. Lucky for us, we got to use our scooters again and see the whole park. 

Another interesting aspect of this area of the Biscayne Bay is the different types of wildlife all around the anchorage. There are iguanas laying in the trees, crabs covering the mangroves, lizards scattered on every trail, and birds of all colors around to identify. Marine life that we saw included large pink jellyfish, a slew of different fish, a spotted eagle ray, manatees floating near the mangroves, and dolphins playing at sunset. Michigan wildlife also seems to have made it down here with Monarch butterflies enjoying the southern heat and raccoons digging through trash in the bright sunlight. Kind of confusing to see them like that actually, there must have been 10 different raccoons either civilized from people enabling them or actually rabid. Not sure, I didn’t get too close. Regardless, the wildlife was definitely awesome and this park in general was a beautiful spot. 

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