Day 174
Steve had been dreading the south Florida ICW because it runs through such highly-populated areas, there are many, many bridges spanning the ICW with heights of less than 21 feet, which is the very least amount of height Legacy needs to pass safely underneath, without damaging her mast or any of the equipment mounted atop it. Steve had studied, we had learned at the AGLCA Rendezvous, and we had been told by many Loopers who had prior experience with this section of the ICW, that it would take quite a bit of time and patience if we opted to travel in the ICW (Intra Coastal Waterway, remember?), rather than just “go outside” and travel northward up the coast in the Atlantic Ocean. One of the things I prefer about traveling the ICW over cruising in the ocean is that our ride is almost always smoother, and there’s a lot more close-up for us to see, since the ICW has been dredged-out to a standard depth of 12-feet to accommodate commercial traffic and, thusly, most recreational boat traffic, as well. I’ve already found that (at least in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off of Florida) when we cruise out in the ocean, in order to find consistent depths of 5.5 feet or deeper (Legacy’s keel is 5-feet) we have to travel far out from land, so that we are unable to see much of the coastal scenery we’re passing. Because the ICW is purposely deep enough, it is often fairly narrow across, which means most times we have front-row seats to all of the sights along our journey. Most boaters we’ve met who have experience with the south Florida ICW have recommended that (even though the section is slow and tedious because of the no wake zones and all the many low bridges with scheduled draw-bridge openings) we should travel it at least once, just for the experience and to see everything along it there is to see. So, for example, many of the drawbridges across the ICW are scheduled to open either on the half-hour or on the quarter-hour. For instance, there were bridges opening at 8:00 and then again at 8:30, while other bridges opened at 8:15 and again at 8:45. Steve tried to plan our departure time to coincide with these schedules, in hopes we’d have Legacy either at or close to the base of each bridge for its scheduled opening time. We left Vice City Marina at 7:10 AM on Wednesday morning, 03/03/21. Our very slow speed of between 5 and 6 knots (mandated on this part of the ICW, even though we often found we seemed to be the only ones obeying that mandate…) would hopefully keep us going slow enough to make the drawbridge openings along the channel, without us having to wait very long at each bridge. Well, in a perfect world, maybe… Steve had thought the distance between Vice City Marina and the first bridge lower than 21-feet would take us about 40 minutes to travel, but it turned out we arrived at that bridge well before its scheduled opening at 8:00 am, so we did have to slow the engines to idle and drift around in the channel while we waited. Protocol is for the captain of each vessel to hail the bridge operator on the designated radio channel (usually channel 9 in that area), to announce the name of his vessel and his intentions. Steve got very good at saying, “______ Bridge, this is the motor vessel Legacy traveling north on the ICW. We are standing by for your ____ opening.” Steve consulted the charts to know which bridge operator to hail each time. (Once it was the Venetian Way bridge, another time it was the East 79th Street bridge, etc.) Every single bridge operator we hailed was patient, friendly and informative, so dealing with them was actually a pleasure, just monotonous, since there were SO MANY bridges. We passed underneath all bridges higher than 21 feet with no delays, and several of the bridges were 60 to 100 feet above the waterway, so they were not a concern for us. We have a routine, for those bridges 21 to 25-feet above the water, where we don our trusty headsets and I go back into the cockpit of the boat to watch the tippy-top of our mast as Steve motors Legacy slowly under the bridge. If, as the mast nears the bridge, I think we don’t have the room we need, I can advise Steve to put the engines into reverse and we’ll just wait for the next opening for that bridge. Better to be safe than sorry. Fortunately, I can say the least amount of clearance we appeared to have encountered on that day was 1.5 feet, from what I could estimate from my view point, at least.
Our traveling weather was beautiful, even though we had a humid 87-degree high forecast for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, so we unzipped all of the flybridge windows that will open. We motored through miles of tall, beautiful buildings and I took a zillion pictures. On our Miami Double-Decker Bus tour, we learned that Miami is “the 3rd tallest city in the US”, and we could certainly see why! I have always been a fan of an artfully-designed skyscraper, so I was enthralled for most of the morning, as they surrounded us.
As we cruised slowly northward, we passed through Miami’s Design District, Miami’s Upper East Side, and Biscayne Park. This portion of the ICW was still considered to be Biscayne Bay. As we moved out of the commercial district a bit, we began to encounter some spectacular waterfront condos and homes that made our eyes pop. We knew there was some major money in this part of the US, but holy crap! As we cruised along, ogling the many luxurious residences between Miami and Fort Lauderdale and beyond, I ran all over the boat taking pictures. I eventually realized I’d taken way more pictures than I would ever use in this blog, but I could not seem to help myself.
We passed through Oleta River State Park, Eastern Shores, Bal Harbour, Sunny Isles Beach, Golden Beach, North Miami Beach, and Hollywood, until we entered Fort Lauderdale. The further north we got, the number of lower bridges seemed to lessen, which was a good thing. The low bridges might have been lessening, but the number of unfathomably gigantic homes and yachts was increasing! And here we were, cruising right through all of them like we belonged there – LOL! Several times I’d spot a For Sale sign at a house and then promptly look it up online to find it was $5 million or more. GULP! (Guess we won’t be moving to this area after we’re done with our traveling…)
As we got north of Fort Lauderdale, we began to notice the houses and condos were interspersed with natural areas filled with mangrove beds. There were several nicely-maintained parks along the ICW that contrasted greatly with their surrounding urban construction. We cruised past Hallendale Beach, Port Everglades, Harbordale, Coral Ridge and Coral Heights, and Imperial Point until we reached Pompano Beach. The gorgeous homes just kept on coming and went for miles. I had no idea what this area looked like until we cruised right through it on our boat. Impressive and overwhelming, actually!
About 2:00 pm that afternoon, we reached our destination of Lighthouse Point Marina, in Lighthouse Point, FL. We had heard good things about this marina and were not disappointed. The marina staff was very helpful, showed us to our slip (which was in an excellent location right in the middle of things), and helped us tie-up and plug-up. Steve did an excellent job of reversing Legacy into our slip “stern-first” as they say in the biz, even though this particular slip was unusually narrow. The best thing about this slip, that I noticed right off, was how protected it was from both wind and wakes, which meant blessed stability!
Our old Pickwick Lake friends, Anna and Phillip Rochat, have a home very close to Lighthouse Point Marina, which is one of the reasons we selected it for our stay. I had texted Anna when we got our boat tied-up and she said to let them know when we were settled in, and they would drive over to greet us. It was great seeing them again, as the last time we’d gathered was at the Miami Boat Show in the spring of 2018. They were wonderful hosts and carried us anywhere we wanted to go in their vehicle. I worried about imposing, but they seemed to enjoy acting as our chauffeurs. They picked us up right at our boat and took us to their favorite Mexican restaurant in the area, Baja Mexican Café, for a yummy dinner and two-for-one margaritas. We talked and talked, reminiscing about all of our friends and fun times on C-Dock at Aqua Yacht Harbor, on Pickwick Lake, on the Tennessee River. After dinner, they graciously drove us back to Legacy in her calm, stable slip at Lighthouse Point Marina, where we crashed early after a long travel day, with promises to get together again the following day.
Position: N 26° 16.047, W 80° 05.070
Distance traveled: 36 SM
Total distance traveled: 2603 SM
Total marina nights: 152
Total nights at anchor: 21
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27