April 24, 2020 – Unlike yesterday, we wasted no daylight in getting up and underway early when we left Fort Lauderdale this morning. Once we could see on deck to raise the anchor, and the markers in the channel, we headed for the first bridge we needed to have opened.
Before the third bridge, a cruising sailboat (Sea More) pulled out of an anchorage and trailed us, soon joined by another (Sea Turtle). I paced our speed to arrive at the prescribed opening times for all the bridges that we were too tall to clear.
None of them opened quite on time, so we’d drag our feet for the last few tenths, and sometimes have to hold our position while waiting the final few minutes. That was occasionally tricky, as the gusty wind would swirl across the canals and channel.
Eventually, though, we were able to tuck under a couple bridges that the sailboats had to have opened, and were on our own.
Really on our own. As in, except for those two, we didn’t encounter another boat all day long that was bigger than 20 feet long, for the whole 40 miles through a dense, boat-rich, stretch that under normal circumstances would have probably been pretty hectic.
So, we did have the time to snap some pictures of some of the nice real estate in this stretch.
We did have just a little excitement when coming up on a bridge that was under renovation. There were construction barges parked with just a little channel in between for us to go through, and then part of the bridge support on the other side to get around. In a gusty wind. Piece of cake.
We started to get a sprinkle, possible a harbinger of the thunderstorms that were predicted for late in the day, so we elected to pull off in West Palm Beach to anchor. When a downpour came down later, the captain went out in his swimsuit and the boat brush to take the first layer of salt spray off the decks. The cool rain felt pretty good after the sticky heat of the afternoon.
Today we logged 40 miles and 17 bridges, (eleven of which needed to be raised for us). All in all, a good day.