My lease here in Saddlebunch will be up in a few weeks, and I'm already partly moved to my new place 7 miles up US-1 on Cudjoe Key. I'm going to miss Lower Sugarloaf Sound very much. It was here that I learned everything I needed to know about kayaking and inshore powerboating, banged my prop on shallows, wondered if I'd ever find a good route to the ocean (I did), wondered if I'd ever understand what makes the water rise and fall, because it sure ain't tides (I did). Nobody ever masters the sea, not even a mostly-tame inshore bay like Lower Sugarloaf Sound, but I came to understand it, because it was my training ground.
The water is high again, a full foot higher than it was in winter, so I'm banging my prop a lot less, if at all. The sound does obey tides, but only minimally, some days only an inch or two either way. What it likes most, is atmospheric precipitation: After a rainy day or two, the water level comes right up. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, this is exactly how Florida Bay behaves, and atmospheric precipitation is its primary source of inflow too. Lower Sugarloaf Sound is not Florida Bay, but it exhibits many of the same behaviors, to the point that what holds true for one, is probably true for the other.
The water isn't extremely salty, and can thus properly be called brackish, an assertion I make primarily due to the presence of sizeable populations of blue crabs (particularly to the northwest), which prefer salinity that isn't much greater than tap water. Four crabs are known to inhabit the waters: Blue crabs, stone crabs, flame box crabs, and golden crabs. And those are just the ones I know about. You're also bound to find fairly large mangrove snapper, along with smaller sergeant majors, right off the seawalls. As you get closer to Sugarloaf Creek and the salinity begins to increase, you'll also see large snook. I've also seen spanish mackerel here.
Today, I took a trip to good ole Abba Zabba. It only took 20 minutes. I planed over the shallows, and didn't bang the prop once. I went along this route:
Which is to say I started out in West Bay Point, hugged the channel around to the eastern side to the mouth of the Boulder Drive canal, then aimed almost directly at Abba Zabba, because the shallows there can be crossed at high tide, or pretty much anytime the water is high like it is now, regardless of what the tide tables say. I then planed the boat all the way to the sandy beachhead and used the bow line to tug it hard ashore. It took 20 minutes, which is a record. It was 45 minutes by kayak, an hour with the Torqeedo.
Again, I'm going to miss this place, miss our love-hate relationship, miss banging my prop and gritting my teeth every 10 minutes, or worse, having to paddle out of the shallows until I could put the prop back down again. This is how I learned all the basics of negotiating the shallows of the Florida Keys. But now I have a new nemesis. Introducing Cudjoe Bay:
Now, I haven't seen detailed soundings of Cudjoe Bay, but from the Google Earth satellite image, I almost don't need them. The darker waters are shallower, and those brown ridges will be fine for trapping crabs, maybe even blues. I can't say for sure, but Cudjoe appears to be more tidal than Lower Sugarloaf Sound, because there's less obstruction between it and the open ocean. The channel that goes up under that bridge, leads to Johnston Key Channel, where I once caught a lot of mangrove snapper and subsequently had an amazing fresh fish curry. Farther south of the image is an outlet to the ocean, where hogfish can presumably be speared in rocky areas. I do know that, looking off the (canal) seawall of my new place, I can see absolutely enormous mangrove snapper and parrotfish. I also look forward to voyages as far as Lois Key.
As you may imagine, I'll keep you updated.
-Chris