Distance: 36 nm /Time: 10 + 15 hrs
The weather forecast called for strong winds/high seas offshore until Monday, so I decided to make the best of it by moving north via the ICW.
What an experience! I have spent a lot of time in the ICW: on the West Coast of Florida from the Keys to Tarpon Springs, and hundreds of miles of it on the East Coast of the U.S. moving Nicholay’s boat from North Carolina to Florida. But I have never experienced anything so miserable as I would for the next 70 miles when transiting the ICW from Miami to West Palm Beach.
What was horrible about it was how many Go*da!?ned drawbridges there were! Evidently, southeast Florida hadn’t gotten the word about the 65′-tall standard for bridges across the ICW that the rest of the country had. Instead, around every bend, often within site of the previous one, was a drawbridge that was on an opening schedule. They seemed to alternate between opening on the hour and half hour, and opening on 15 minutes and 45 minutes past the hour. This turned out to be the worst possible timing for a boat of my speed (or really any sailboat–you know, the boats that actually need the bridges to open for them?)!
From the anchorage in Biscayne Bay to my next anchorage at Lake Santa Barbara in Pompano Beach, 36 ICW miles north, there were 12 drawbridges that I had to wait for. What should have been a six-hour day was, instead, a 10-hour day–almost four hours sitting at idle or motoring around in circles waiting for bridges to open. For me being single handed and having to constantly be at the helm, this was cruel torture. The day was one of the most exhausting boating days I’ve experienced.1
That isn’t to say that there wasn’t some very pretty scenery, if you can set aside the ostentatiousness everywhere you look.
Amazingly large, never-ending mansions on the water, dozens and dozens of go-fast boats with five (5!) 450 hp outboard engines, many 150’+ long yachts, and on and on. Oh, and unfriendly people. Boats full of people would pass me only 15′ away (I mean, passing slowly in no-wake zones), and they would all just stare at me or look away when I smiled and waved. Loud, loud stereos playing from the boats as they drove around. It seemed all about appearance, and was really quite gross. The whole area struck me as a very…artificial kind of place. Although I have to admit that it was very beautiful in some ways.
Admittedly, there were some interesting sights along the way. I got to pass a container ship loading dock, some really cool, hole-in-the-wall-type restaurants right on the water, a huge cruise ship getting underway in Fort Lauderdale, and I even crashed a wedding!
Oh, and this place was pretty cool near downtown Fort Lauderdale at the intersection of a few different waterways. A couple of food/ice cream barges where everyone would just hang out, floating around in and out of the water. I guess that’s what you have to do when there are no islands to hang out on.
At the north end of the trek, near Hollywood, there were still some “Old Florida” type places along the water which I guess were hold outs from the developers. From a simpler (and less expensive) Florida.
Sometime during the day, I ended up getting caught up in drawbridge prison with another cruising sailboat. We had two very different techniques for managing the bridges. As soon as they got through one bridge, they’d go full throttle to the next one, then idle around in circles for 10 or 15 minutes waiting for the bridge to open. I would use my GPS to calculate how far the next bridge was, then set my speed (slower) to arrive right then. Saved gas, less wear and tear on the engine, quieter and more relaxing for me. We’d wave, say hi to each other, then do the same thing to the next bridge. I was feeling pretty smug arriving each time just as the bridges were opening.
Until one time when we ended up separating. They had zoomed ahead to the next bridge which just happened to be opening off-schedule because a barge being towed couldn’t wait. So, they got to sneak through at that opening while I showed up 15 minutes later for the normally-scheduled one. I never saw them again. So, perhaps their strategy had some merit. đ
My plan was to spend a night at the Pompano Beach anchorage, then continue north to the Lake Worth mooring field the next day. But, I was so exhausted that I could not face another day of the same. And actually, it was going to be even worse: Instead of 12 bridges in 36 miles, there would be 16 bridges in 33 miles! I just couldn’t take it, and so decided to take a day of rest at the anchorage and figure out a new plan after I got some rest.
The anchorage was empty except for one other boat, and I was able to set the anchor without a problem.
Except that the holding the bolt-axle on my anchor roller in had come off, and the roller and axle were jammed in the arms of the anchor roller itself. I was able to deploy the anchor, but would have to fix that tomorrow.
- I decided to copy here verbatim my logbook entry from the day: “The ICW route should have taken 6 hours. However, because of all the damn bridges, it took over 10! The draw bridges seem purposely spaced out to make waiting for up to 30 minutes at each one a necessity. They alternate opening on the hour and half hour, or opening on 15 and 45 minutes past the hour. Over and over I would clear a bridge, put in the next bridge in the GPS, and discover that at top speed I would be five minutes too late. But these bridges are spaced out every three miles on average, which meant that if you couldn’t get there within 15 minutes, you’d be waiting for nearly a half hour after you got there. So, rather than spinning in circles, I would motor at whatever speed would get me there at the next opening I could make, which typically meant 2.5-3.5 knots. So, almost the entire day was spent at 3 knots. Sometimes, the speed I would need to use was too slow to be practical, so I ended up having to wait anyway. More than once I missed an opening by two minutes. Then I had to wait a half hour! It was pure torture. Twelve bridges. They never seemed to end. You go through one, turn the corner, and there was another one a mile and a half away. Back to 2.5 knots and putt along for 45 minutes! It was a horrible day! The only good part was some decent scenery in Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale, but it didn’t make up for the day. I’m totally exhausted. Rushing down in the cabin occassionally to pee or fill up my water or try to scrape together something to eat in the 30 seconds I would allow myself spend down below out of sight of the other boats. Luckily, this time of the year, there wasn’t much traffic. So much work, so much concentration, no breaks. Just horrible. Oh, and most of the bridge tenders were very bad. They wouldn’t monitor their radios, and sometimes wouldn’t even answer their phone. And, some had such a strong accent that they were unintelligible. It was a frustrating day. God, and I’ve got the same thing waiting for me tomorrow!” âŠī¸