Start: Lake Worth 26°45.498'N, 080°02.636'W

Finish: Stuart, FL 27°12.010'N, 080°15.516'W

0700 Underway

1330 Tied up at a slip in Sunset Bay Marina, Stuart, FL

Total Time:  6 hour 30 minutes

Total Distance: 32.7 nm

Today we began our first daylong trip on the Atlantic ICW.  We were never able to take this route before, which runs parallel to the Atlantic Coast, because our mast was too high.  After having it cut down to 63.5 ft when we had the engines converted to diesel in March, we can now easily go under the 65 ft. bridges.  (The federal guideline for bridge heights on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway is 65 feet.)  We have already gone under one 65 ft. bridge, the Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon, on our way to the Gulf Coast.  Our antenna which is above the top of the mast did not touch in that case. 

At the suggestion of our friend Lynn on Sunspot Baby, we made a list of the ten bridges we would go under between Lake Worth (Palm Beach) and Stuart and crossed them off as we passed them.  Even though the bridges are all marked on our chart plotter, it was good to know what was coming up.  A few are 65 feet but most are bascule. Some open on the hour and half hour, some open at quarter after and quarter to the hour and some open on request.  Schedules seem to be timed so that motoring at a “normal” speed, one can make each bridge for the scheduled opening.  However, that doesn’t account for waiting for commercial vessels which happened to us. 

As we exited our anchorage in Lake Worth, a cruise ship from the Bahamas came out of the inlet  from the ocean headed for a slip across the lake. (photo above)  Of course we had to wait for the ship to pass in front of us and then slowly followed it until we could turn north on the ICW.  In the photo above on the left, we are entering the ICW.  Normally, the rule for staying between channel markers is, “red, right, returning.”  In other words, as you come into a channel from the ocean and follow it, you keep the red markers on your right (starboard) and the green on your left (port).  However, going north in the ICW the red markers are kept on your left and the green on your right. 

The first bridge we went under was the Jack Nicklaus Bridge, a fixed 65 ft., and we easily passed under the center span. The ten minutes we were held up by the Bahamas cruise ship kept us from making the first bascule bridge, the Parker Bridge,  which went up on the quarter after and quarter to the hour.  However, as we were going down the ICW before we reached the Parker Bridge, we passed a small barge.(photo left) Commercial vessels are always allowed to pass under bridges on demand, regardless of schedules. Therefore, when the barge came up behind us at the bridge and requested an immediate opening, we got to go under too.  However, we were still off schedule for the next few bridges. The barge followed us and saved us a few minutes on each one, however they were quite slow and came up 5-10 minutes after we reached them.  We finally got onto the schedule, calling each bridge tender to request an opening.  The tenders were extremely polite and friendly, sometimes apologizing if we had to wait. 

It was nice not to have to be concerned about the wind or waves on the ocean for once, even though it was quite calm out there today.  Several times we noticed how nice it was to have 80 hp with our diesel engines, rather than our previous electric engine which gave us much less speed and power in precarious situations. Once we got behind a barge that was turning into a canal and we were unable to pass it for a few minutes. This made us behind schedule to get to a bridge opening but we were able to speed up to over 8 kts to make up time.   (A catamaran does not make a wake when going a little faster, unlike small speedboats.)

At one point we were passing by the Jupiter inlet from the ocean and came to a bascule bridge near the inlet.  The tide was going out creating a very strong current near the bridge and we were going against a 3 kt current.  When we requested the opening, the bridge tender replied that she would be opening it but to stay outside the fenders until it was fully open.  We thought it was odd that she said this as no other bridge operators had mentioned this.  We always try to get fairly close to the bridge, without getting too near it so once it opens we can get through quickly and not hold up car traffic, but this time the current started to pull us sideways as we approached the bridge so we had to circle around and line up again.   When it did open, we pushed through the water as quickly as we could against the outgoing current.  We made it with no problem but the smaller sailboat following us took much longer to get through the current.  We knew that with our hybrid propulsion system we would have been in trouble getting to the other side of the bridge. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip up the ICW.  The weather behind us was stormy, but it never caught up with us.  The waterway was usually wide with the channel roomy enough for other boats going south to pass next to us and beautiful homes on the shores.  There wasn’t much boat traffic, but probably on weekends it’s a different story.  That’s why we waited until after the Memorial Day Weekend to travel north.

In the photo at the right, we are ready to go under the last 65 ft bridge before we reached our destination, Sunset Bay Marina.  It is the “new” Roosevelt Bridge which is US 1.  Next to it is the “old” Roosevelt Bridge, which is a bascule.  It appeared that the spans of the old bridge were permanently up, which was odd because both of these bridges are heavily traveled.  A quick call to the dockmaster at Sunset Bay revealed that the old bridge is being painted and will be up for two months.  Beyond that is the very last obstacle, a railroad bridge.  It automatically goes down when a train is approaching, but a loud signal goes off to warn boaters in plenty of time  which is good since there is no tender to monitor the closing.  Both bridges were in the up position so we went under all three bridges, and there we were at the marina!  After a stop at the fuel dock we were directed to our slip.

We will stay here until at least November 1, possibly longer depending on the weather.  In order to go to The Bahamas next fall we will probably go back to Miami and cross to Bimini from there.  We’re looking forward to staying in Stuart.  From everything we’ve learned about this city during a few visits here in the spring, I think we are going to enjoy it.  In any event, it’s wonderful to be tied to a dock again with air conditioning, cable TV,  and unlimited hot water. Our car was stored here, so we have transportation available again. I’m sure Daisy is happy too since she now gets at least three walks a day instead of two. Stepping off the boat onto a dock and not into a dinghy is certainly easier for us although Daisy probably misses her dinghy rides.