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Howard Helfant: Nixon’s Sandbar



Howard Helfant is a veteran marketing consultant who lives and works in Miami, Florida. Howard Helfant holds a degree in marketing from Columbia University.

Whenever he gets the opportunity, he enjoys plying the waters off of Florida’s east coast. “I really love boating, and Miami is blessed with so many places to see and explore on the water,” he says. “When you get onto the Biscayne Bay, the view of the Miami skyline is just breathtaking.” He says there are three islands he likes to cruise by: Hibiscus Island, Star Island, and Palm Island. “They’re clustered a bit north of the MacArthur Causeway. They’re dotted with beautiful homes; it’s a pleasant cruise.”

He is the owner of a thirty-foot pontoon boat he named Chef’s Surprise. “The day we launched it, we did this whole christening thing with a bottle of champagne,” he recalls. “It was a real hoot.” He’s skippered the Chef’s Surprise as far north as the Sea Islands off the Georgia Coast, where he and his friends anchored at Jekyll Island; and as far south as Key West, which required a coastal cruise around Florida’s southern tip.
One not-to-be-missed stop for shorter day cruises, he says, is a sandbar on the west side of Key Biscayne. “Nixon used to have what he called his ‘Winter White House’ nearby,” Howard Helfant says, referring to former President Richard M. Nixon. “It isn’t there anymore. But some of the old-timers still call it ‘Nixon’s Sandbar,’ because of the proximity.”

The best of his cruises, Howard Helfant says, include throwing a line into the water, and with a little luck, catching something for dinner.

Follow Howard Helfant at Twitter: https://twitter.com/helfanthoward
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