Lot of questions. Good local knowledge about Dinner Key above. It is possible to
anchor near the charted monument off of Miami Beach, or near the yacht club on Watson Island; however, Ft. Lauderdale is a much better location to access marine supplies, etc., in my opinion. There is a mooring field in Ft. Lauderdale near the Las Olas Blvd. Bridge. It is run by the city and is reasonably close to marine stores, food, etc. However, if you just need a few things like food,
water,
fuel jugs, etc. I might suggest you
head down to Marathon in the Keys and then on to
Key West before jumping off towards
Panama. Marathon has rental moorings, good marine supplies, lots of
repair shops, a supermarket close to the water, etc. Everything is much easier to get and closer to the water in Marathon, though Ft. Lauderdale is the place if you need some sort of major
equipment repair. Via the Keys would be my preferred
route south to
Panama, especially in July-August. Pass close to the western end of
Cuba and then
head straight for Providencia Island (part of Colombia), which is south of most hurricanes. This would allow you to duck into the Rio Dulce in
Guatemala if a
hurricane was coming. But, any route you take you are taking your chances in that season. The key will be to
monitor the
hurricane center frequently. The problem is that early season tropical systems pop up in the western
Caribbean virtually overnight. We just dodged a system there in late May of 2006. It went over us as a tropical wave with maybe 40 knots and lots of rain, but then turned into a tropical storm the next day. Things develop fast down there.