Thirty Years on Biscayne Bay: A Captain Talks

How different is the bay from the one you started on?

Busier, and better run. In the nineties you could anchor at the sandbar on a Saturday with maybe twenty boats around you. Now it is a couple hundred, and the marine patrol is out there all day, which is a good thing. The water is clearer than people expect. The seagrass took a beating for a while, but the bay is resilient. It has outlasted every prediction about it.

Everyone asks about Stiltsville. What do you tell them?

That there used to be twenty-seven houses on those flats and there are seven left, and nobody has been allowed to build since Betsy in 1965. Andrew finished off most of what was standing. The ones you see now are inside the national park, and you cannot tie up or go inside without a permit. I take guests past slowly and let them look. Most of them go quiet.

Which sandbar, and when?

Nixon on a weekday morning, before eleven. Haulover if the group wants the scene. The thing people miss is that the sandbars are a tide question, not a location question. Two hours either side of low water and you are standing waist deep in gin; at high tide the same spot is over your head and the magic is gone. I plan the day around the tide table and let the guests think I am lucky.

What was the worst weather call you ever had to make?

A July afternoon maybe fifteen years ago, a squall line that came off the Everglades faster than the radar suggested. I had twelve guests at Elliott Key, a birthday, and I pulled the anchor with the cake half served. We were inside No Name Harbor when it hit, sixty-knot gusts, sideways rain, and I had a very unhappy host for about twenty minutes. Then we watched it cross the bay from the deck with everyone dry. He has booked me every summer since.

Favorite anchorage, honestly?

Boca Chita, the little harbor at the north end of the keys with the lighthouse. It is a run down the bay, so most day charters never get there. Clear water, a stone jetty, and the skyline just barely visible behind you. Second is the west side of Elliott Key at sunset. I have anchored there a thousand times and I still take a picture.

What do guests get wrong?

They plan against the boat instead of with it. They want the sandbar at four in the afternoon when the tide is wrong, or the sunset from a spot facing east. And they keep the important information to themselves. If I know it is a proposal or a grandmother's birthday or that someone gets seasick, I build a different day. Tell the captain the truth at the dock and the day gets better before we have left the slip.

And what do they get right, more than they used to?

They respect the crew. That has changed a lot. Guests come aboard now and ask the mate's name, they ask about the boat, they listen to the safety talk. And they have done their reading; they know what a flybridge is and why it matters. The best charter guests are curious. Curiosity is easy to host.

Has the fleet itself changed?

Boats got bigger and quieter. When I started, a 60-footer was a big deal on the bay. Now 80 is normal for a day charter and there are 120s at anchor off the Beach every weekend. Generators are quieter, stabilizers are standard on the good ones, and the toys went from a float and a snorkel to Seabobs and inflatable platforms. The bay is the same size. The boats are not.

Advice for someone booking their first charter here?

Go in the morning, in any season. Ask for eight hours if you can, because four goes fast. Bring soft shoes, sunscreen that will not stain the teak, and a clear idea of what the day is for. And let the crew work. The people who have the best day are the ones who do the least. That is not laziness. That is the whole product.

Thirty years in. What still gets you?

The run home at dusk when the skyline lights come up and somebody on the flybridge goes quiet. I have seen it thousands of times. It has not gotten old once.