The Road To Longshore Valve

Various ideas came to mind, but with a hard shell canoe, the only solution I could see was to buy, make or adapt a trailer to tow the boat behind my bike.

Trailers do exist, but are quite expensive, would occupy a lot of room in the boat, and realistically limit the cycling part of the journey to roads and level tracks. I wanted the freedom to do more! Blogs on the Song of the Paddle pointed me in the direction of packrafts.

These are lightweight inflatable boats, specifically designed to be compact and easy to carry in a rucksack or on a bike. At first glance they look like odd-shaped beach toys, but perform like 'proper' boats. Their website is very informative, and gives easy access to all the specifications for the models they sell. I went for this one because it was a good compromise for what I wanted to do - single and multiple day trips, on foot or with the bike.

Longshore packrafts are a bit heavier and bulkier than alpaca rafts, which use a lighter single-coated fabric for their hulls, but these things are relative. The De weighs in at around 4. The cockpit is slightly longer too, which suited me. Service was excellent - I ordered via their website yesterday morning, and had an email from Tim, the owner of the company, confirming dispatch that afternoon. The boat and four-piece paddle arrived this morning.

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The boat-in-a-box contained the boat itself, the deck, a repair kit and spare valve, an inflation bag and a storage bag. There was just now way that was going to turn into a boat that could carry kg of me, plus a bike and gear The boat unrolled into this: Which soon inflated into this: The inflation bag simply screws into the valve, and you squeeze air into the hull. It took me more than the advertised three minutes to inflate - there is a knack to filling and closing the bag, but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it, and Im sure I will be quicker next time.

Hull pressure was topped off by inserting the second part of the valve and using lung power.

The seat and back rest are also inflatable, and seemed quite comfortable. The cockpit felt a bit smaller than the specifications suggested, but still had ample space for me.

I would be able to fit a day-sack ahead of my feet without a problem, though larger loads would have to sit on top of the bow tubing. The first bridge across Biscayne Bay was the 2.

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Fisher and the Miami banker brothers John N. Lummus and James E. The Lummus brothers lobbied for the county commission's support for a second causeway connecting Miami to the barrier islands of Miami Beach, and the County Causeway—later the MacArthur Causeway —opened on February 17, Other causeways are the John F. In , the bay was designated as a state aquatic preserve.

The aquatic preserve spans the entirety of Biscayne Bay from Oleta River in the north to Card Sound in the south, with the exception of the central part of the bay, which is Biscayne National Park. These two preserves are now managed by the state of Florida under the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves.

Seven remaining houses of Biscayne Bay's Stiltsville settlement are now within the boundaries of this National Park which was established in In regards to wildlife, bottlenose dolphins and Florida manatees can be observed in the bay.

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The bay has been known by several names. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda related that a sailor from the Bay of Biscay called the Viscayno or Biscayno had lived on the lower east coast of Florida for a while after being shipwrecked, and a 17th-century map shows a Cayo de Biscainhos , the probable origin of Key Biscayne.

The bay was known as Key Biscayne Bay in the 19th century, finally shrinking to Biscayne Bay late in the 19th century. The term "safety valve" was applied to the tidal flats by Ralph Munroe , who argued against building a causeway and bridges connecting Key Biscayne to the Ragged Keys and beyond on the grounds that such construction would block the free outflow of storm surges from the bay across the flats to the ocean. It is believed that it does moderate the effects of storm surges on the bay.

The transportation of sand southward along the Atlantic Coast of Florida by longshore drift ends in the area of the Safety Valve. The structure of the Safety Valve has been stable for at least the last century. Stiltsville is a collection of buildings on pilings on several sand flats at the northern end of the Safety Valve.