Monday, 15 January 2018

ICW - Intracoastal Waterway


One of the main reasons Simon and Kim wanted to go down the ICW and we started at Palm Beach was that their boat draws to much water to go down it any quicker. This was supposed to be the deepest part of the waterway but we later found out that this is not the case. 
The ICW was a really chilled motor until we wanted to moor at the Two George’s restaurant for something to eat. We had spoke to them and they said we could moor there over night as long, as we eat their restaurant, but when we arrived there was no space at the dock. This was not a problem as we would just eat on board the boat and keep motoring down through the ICW until we find an area where we could anchor for the night.

It was such a beautiful part of the world and looking at all the homes as we passed by was an eye opener. Some of these homes were just amazing and the money they must have cost was silly, but if these people want to spend their money this way then what’s it got to do with me. Some of the homes had little putting greens on their front lawn, others had false rocks that looked like a water fall but they were a slid that went into their swimming pools. Now that would be cool even if the novelty wore off. Some looked like they were built for a film set and other just had no taste what’s so ever. Every house we saw was different and they were the topic of conversation all the way to Fort Lauderdale.

While steaming down the ICW its supposed to be a “NO WAKE ZONE”, which means no waves, but this was ignored by 80 percent of the boats which was really annoying as they had no consideration for any other vessels on the ICW and if your music was not blasting out the worst music in the world then you were not cool enough to be in a boat…… I must be getting old……

While we were motoring down (slowly) we came to a crossroads where another river meets ours and the tide was ripping through. Michael was ahead of us and he was keeping an eye on the depth as we draw a lot more water than he did, when suddenly, we hit the bottom. It was not a hard hit but more a soft one which means it was just mud and nothing hard like rocks. A man from the ICW came along side the boat and told us we would have the wait a few minutes as it was spot on low water and told us there was a bank of mud in this area due to the tides. Sure, enough we were off in a few minutes and we headed further south again.

We looked at the charts and we found what looked like an area that was deep enough to anchor for the night but how wrong we were. We were not even in the area when we hit the bottom again. This time it was a bit harder and we were stuck. Simon raised the sail to get a bit of weight on one side of the boat while he came astern and it worked a trick too. We were off and again we headed south looking for somewhere to anchor. We eventually found a place to anchor and after we were all secure for the night we grabbed something to eat, then hit the hay.

What an eventful day we had and tomorrow we would be in Fort Lauderdale.

We all woke up fresh and ready to go and the houses just seemed to get bigger and better the closer to got to downtown Fort Lauderdale. After a few hours we had arrived and moored up into this beautiful area.

Next Time in Fort Lauderdale, our stay had some major ups and downs. Watch this space.




ONCE AGAIN THANK YOU FOR READING OUR BLOG

OVER AND OUT

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