Esther Luft, my nice local Miami organizer and Yeraldine Ordonez, my lovely Miami host, ready to go on the evening paddle, together with 6 other local paddlers

We were launching around 7.30pm from the Crandon Park Marina on Kay Biscayne, in thick fat heat clouds with lots of thermal flashes in the sky. Fascinating atmosphere and a beautiful colorful sunset! But I’m wondering if I’d been launching by myself in an upcoming tropical summer evening thunderstorm. But the locals said “no worries…” – flashes only, no real bad weather, the water and wind will stay calm…

The seagulls took position on a bunch of poles in front of downtown Miami skyline

My host Yeraldine was on a fat plastic sit on top, and I felt like she liked to rather try my fancy epic 18x sport – she loved it! I paddled her sit on top all the two hours out to the pole house – good work out!

There were about 7 houses in Biscayne Bay, called “Stiltsville”, built in the shallow water on poles, mostly used as unusual party locations. Wer were arriving around 10pm in darkness, the wind has been freshening quite a bit from behind. “Our” house was about 6 miles offshore. But the water in the bay was shallow, and HOT! Not refreshing at all to go for a dip. Flying fish around, small sharks, some stingrays…

As the wind was freshening even more and more, we rather eventually pulled the kayaks up on to the lowere level of the house, the wooden planks covered with a thick white layer of stinky birdshit

The crazy Miami paddling crew, me taking the pic.

Then it was rather time to wait out the eventually upcoming 20+ knots wind, as the way back would be headwind…so most of us were partying a bit, but thre of us rather took a nap – including me with my 6-hrs jetlag.

At 1am we decided after some discussions to eventually launch, the wind was still 15-20 knots headwind. But the water was calm, and the forecast said no more freshening up. I towed the fat sit on top back home, Yeraldine working as hard as never in her life to make my tug boat job a bit easier 🙂

Eventually we arrived back in the Marina safe and sound, at 3am, tired, but no one wanted to have missed that trip!

Thanks to Esther oranizing, and to Theresa getting us access to that nice night venue. And thanks to all my fellow paddlers getting me out there in such surreal conditions!

See you all on my Saturday night talk in Miami!