Hobe Sound to Miami

Friday March 11, 2011

Early departure from Hobe Sound with all windows fogged up inside. It had gotten very cold overnight, and the sky was clear. We continued on the ICW and intended to stay on it all the way down to Miami. Interesting at first, and quite entertaining with all the views to the left and to the right. But soon came the bridges, which became increasingly lower than our minimum clearance of 25ft. Again very interesting a t first, but we started losing time waiting for opening times, which were either on the hour and 30 minutes, or 15 past and 45 past. Some could be coordinated by adjusting our cruise speed, others couldn't. Our speeds varied between 4 kts and 8 kts to make the schedules. Calling them was never a problem, and all of the operators were friendly and helpful. But we just started to lose too much valuable time. After Boca Raton Lake there were another 7 or 8 restricted bridges to be expected, so we decided to go out Boca Raton Inlet and try the Atlantic. We should have done this much earlier! Boca Inlet is a bit tricky, shallow and narrow, but it was worth the small "risk".
Wonderfully calm sea all the way down to Miami, which we reached with a delay of 2 hours (due to the bridges) and consequently had to find our way in at night. Navigating the Inlet was easy, but the way to the Marine Stadium Anchorage was a challenge in the dark. Some portions of the ICW is extremely narrow, at least on the charts. GPS and the Nav-display was not a luxury!
Marine Stadium anchorage was quite full, but we found a good spot and stayed overnight with a northerly breeze of 15 kts and a little chop. The anchor was again not a problem at all.
Plan for the next day:  ICW  to Pumpkin Key anchorage, next to Angelfish Creek.