Nine!

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Today's travel would begin the section of South Florida that is infamous for the number of drawbridges that you must pass through on the ICW.  Some of them are easy, opening on demand,
while others only open on a schedule, once every half-hour, or even only once an hour!  Miss a scheduled opening, and you could be waiting in circles for up to an hour!

Because of this, it's unreasonable to expect to get the typical 40 miles in, so we once again scheduled a 30 mile day.  This ended up taking us under nine drawbridges!

Midway through the day, we passed through the bastion of conspicuous consumption and insustrial and recreational activity that is Palm Beach.  My senses were truly overloaded, in a way that hasn't happened since the industrial section of the ICW just south of Norfolk!  Massive marinas, freighters, and small boats all vied with each other for space near the inlet, while massive condos lined the shores.

Massive Condos

Everywhere!

Gigantic Personal Fishing Boats

Brightly Colored

Large Ships Getting "Cocooned"

From This Angle, It Looks Like a Headless Dolphin!

Big Freighter

Ship In Drydock

The photos don't begin to convey the scale of the place!

Palm Beach Biltmore Condos

At the Palm Beach Biltmore Condominiums, a double condo once sold for over $7 million!!

Distracted Jetski Operator

We even saw a jetski driver using his smartphone while driving!  The ski was going in circles, and nearly clipped the green marker!


While waiting for one of the many drawbridges, we had a "Who's on First" moment.  We called the bridge tender and announced ourselves by name.  We got a short answer back and replied that we wanted to request a bridge opening, at which point a different voice came on and identified himself as the bridge tender, and the first voice came back requesting the vessel that was hailing Dolce Vita!

Turns out that there was a second southbound sailboat (a catamaran)  named "Dolce Vita" who was also waiting for the same bridge!  From there after for the next few bridges, we had to identify ourselves as "Dolce Vita Catamaran" or "Dolce Vita Monohull"

And even after we'd separated (they were faster than us), bridge tenders would tell us "I just had a boat named Dolce Vita go through here!"

The Other Dolce Vita

We ended the day by anchoring just south of a drawbridge at "Lantana", which is almost to Delray beach.  Tomorrow, we head to Ft Lauderdale, and then on to Miami on Friday.