Onward South To Boca Raton N26 20.355 W080 04.039
Onward South To Boca Raton N26 20.355 W080
04.039 3rd and 4th November
2018 Haigri slipped her dock at Riviera
Beach at 0815hrs and motored in good although overcast conditions back to the
AICW. Passing Lake Worth Inlet we
negotiated the first two restricted bridges without incident but had to give way
to a large superyacht at Flagler Bridge as not really enough room for us both to
squeeze through. Plus they asked us
really nicely! Giving way was the only answer as a
bit of a tight squeeze We then plodded on for a couple of hours until finally
the wind swung to the north and Chris seized the opportunity to unfurl the genoa
and we actually sailed. This helped
with speed as one problem for sailboats who traverse the AICW is that a number
of the bridges between Lake Worth and Ft Lauderdale open within 15 minutes of
each other. This is great if you
are a powerboat but not so great for us little sailboats so we had quite a bit
of mooching about waiting for openings.
Fortunately, we weren’t in any great hurry. An unusual
bridge Another feature of the AICW is the use of the VHF. Back in the UK we don’t really tend to
use our VHF radio as unnecessary.
Here on the AICW we have had a lot of practice albeit not quite in the
RYA/MCA manner. The phonetic
alphabet was out as we were specifically asked not to use it and listening over
the airways “Roger” and “copy that” seemed to be used fairly
frequently a definite no go in the UK.
It also took us a little while to know what to say which in the end took
the form “….. bridge this is southbound sailboat Haigri, awaiting your next
opening, over”. This was usually
acknowledged by the bridge who gave the time you had to wait for the next
opening plus they requested the spelling of the yacht name. It was also good manners, when you had
passed under the bridge, to thank the bridge which we did. In the US whoever mans the radio is
referred to as Captain. A local making his/her views
known! Motoring down the waterway is a pretty long process and
after 8 hours of negotiating bridges and having only reached Boca Raton we
decided to stop. There are very few
places to moor up on the ICW and few marinas that take transient sailboats so we
ended up anchoring in Boca Raton Lake which had sufficient depth for Haigri’s
1.8m draft. Nightfall here in
Florida comes early around 5-6pm and no sooner had we anchored when the night
drew in and brought with it squalls, thunder and lightening and an awful lot of
rain. Needless to say we had little
sleep that night. At anchor in Boca Raton Lake –
surrounded by high rise apartments After a restless night we upped anchor, manually, as we
found the electric windlass had stopped working. Yet another little job to sort
out!!! Sailing seems to be a
process of lurching from one repair to another despite how much maintenance has
already been carried out. Peter visiting a neighbouring
yacht Ft Lauderdale
anchorage Onward we went again down the waterway to Fort
Lauderdale where we were rewarded with clear skies and warm breezes. Again, we had no luck with marinas as
there was a boat show on and the area was filled with giant superyachts (lots
flying UK ensigns) so anchoring was the name of the game. We anchored without problem but then
found that there was nowhere we could land the dinghy as transients were not
particularly popular hence we stayed onboard and watched all the activity going
on around us. Noisy party yachts
seemed quite popular and then at 6pm presumably the boat show closed as all
participants sounded their horns.
Very noisy. A busy highway Tomorrow we say goodbye to the Atlantic Intracoastal
Waterway and its many bridges (which, amazingly, stay open 24 hours a day) and
head out to the Bahamas |