Monday 23 Dec, West Palm FL day 8: Today we are going south on the ICW (inter coastal waterway) to Fort Lauderdale. Or at least, that was the plan!
Normally we can’t transit on the ICW because we are too tall (83ft) but yesterday we spent most of the morning researching the section West Palm to Lauderdale. All the bridges seem to be bascule opening bridges, and no sign of any overhead power lines or obstructions. To double check we contacted the local OCC rep and got the all clear… “as far as he could recall”. Getting pretty excited, this will be something different for us.
We have also worked out where we will anchor, about 5 miles south of Lauderdale in Hollywood (no, a Hollywood, not THE Hollywood). So we book a rental car to pick up in Hollywood tomorrow so we can be land-mobile over Christmas.
After a quick dinghy ride ashore to get the last Amazon delivery, we set off south. At first we are pretty nervous at staying in the relatively narrow channel. We are used to being at sea with no hazards and autohelm doing the work. On the ICW we have to steer and keep a good lookout for the many other boats. The bridges open alternating on the hour/half hour and the next bridge on the 1/4 hour. So transit should be relatively smooth. That said, we are a bit early for the first bridge (Flagler Memorial Bridge) and have to drift up to it for about 15 mins.
Once through we are directly in West Palm downtown district. Where quite a few yachts are anchored. Next bridge is 15 mins later, the Royal Park Bridge, and soon we are through and heading south away from West Palm, admiring all the amazing houses that line the banks.
We are just congratulating ourselves on doing the ICW when …. what’s that ahead, over the next bridge (the Southern Boulevard bridge)? Looks like a gangtree high over the bridge? We call ahead and indeed, the maximum clearance under the structure is 65ft 🙁 So much for trusting Navionics. It only mentioned “bascule” bridge. No mention of any height restriction.
As we make a U-turn, to say we are disappointed is an understatement. Clearly we should have consulted an ICW pilot, which of course we don’t have. Apologetically we re-pass the previous 2 bridges and decide to anchor back exactly where we were, in Lake Worth. We had free WiFi there courtesy of a local venue which didn’t have any password security so we will have entertainment this evening.
What to do? We decide we will keep the booked hire car and head to Lauderdale on the outside (via the sea) departing very early in the morning to ensure we get anchored and into the Hollywood Enterprise office before they close at 3pm. Wind is forecast to be offshore 15kts, so should be a good sail at least.
While Oana prepares our late lunch I prepare the boat for sea tomorrow. Outboard off, dinghy secured, halyards tightened etc. Then we start to binge watch Sneaky Pete, the Amazon Prime series we started the last couple of nights. 5 episodes into Series 2, we head to bed at 11pm with a 5am alarm.
