Fort Pierce to West Palm (“Is this thing on?”)

March 4-6, 2025

Mar 06, 2025

The weather wasn’t conducive to an offshore passage all week and we really wanted to make progress south, so we took the ICW. The first day, Tuesday, we had to wait for low tide for the first bridge so we couldn’t leave until 3:30pm. That meant that we could only go a few hours south that day, but we needed the break anyway.

On Wednesday, I was still exhausted and achy from the last few harrowing days. We went under and through several bridges and I really didn't want to push on the whole way to West Palm as planned. Continuing on meant more bascule bridges (one that only has one side raised while under construction) and with 20+ kt winds.

Push On or Slow Down?

Dale really wanted to get to West Palm as quickly as possible since there might be a weather window across to the Bahamas that Friday or Saturday. As much as I wanted to get to the Bahamas (especially now that my LOA had started), I just couldn’t imagine pushing on hard enough to be ready to go by then (getting ourselves to West Palm AND finishing all of our provisioning, not to mention a still lengthy To Do list of “before we go” tasks). I hadn’t even taken any time to rest after my hectic last week of work. I felt the kind of exhaustion (mental and physical) that usually only comes after an intense long weekend of traveling with our marching band, a musical festival weekend with our rowdy friends, or moving to a new house… that kind of exhaustion!

So we were having this ongoing debate. Dale was in the (very unusual for us) position of being a cheerleader (“We can do it. You’ll be so glad when we get there.”) while I just kept saying I needed a break. I could have easily slept for 14+ hours.

That afternoon, I was at the helm and pointed out a funny site to Dale... a floating tiki bar (not uncommon at all), but it was picking people up on a small beach along the side of the ICW. That part was new and cool. There were a bunch of people (maybe 15-20) hanging out along this beach, in bathing suits, and many were standing on a sand bar that jutted out from shore almost to the channel. It looked fun. There were about 5 boats anchored (3 looked big enough to likely be there overnight).

Within minutes, we decided to throw out our "push on" plans and drop anchor to check this place out. I pulled over, watched our depth carefully, and we chose a spot just beyond the last boat. Our anchor is working so great now that it was easy-peasy to get hooked midway between the shallows and the ICW channel. We ate salads for lunch and then put on our bathing suits and dinghied to shore.

This was exactly what I needed that day!! We set up our little folding chairs and relaxed with our feet in the water for most of the afternoon. Walking out the sandbar to very near the channel was cool too, but very windy. We met a few cruisers, aboard S/V Fat Mermaid, who shared tips about this area, where they dock full-time (They live in Jax, so they just drive down periodically and spend 7-10 days cruising).

If we ever come through this stretch along the ICW again, I’ll definitely plan to anchor near “Sandbar Anchorage” again! It’s the kind of place that makes cruising fun… finding a cool spot that you can only get to by boat! With the often incessant planning required for this lifestyle, it was also amazing to just be spontaneous!

Bridge Hell

The next day made me even happier that we had taken an afternoon “off” to do something fun. We had to get through 7 bascule bridges. The first few were fine.

Then, we got to the Jupiter Federal Bridge, which we knew was under construction and would only raise one side (which made us nervous enough on this windy day). When we got close, we called channel 09 on the VHF, as usual, and there was no answer… very unusual! We tried a few times. There was a large crane in the way of the bascule side that should open and we couldn’t see any workers anywhere. I’d checked the city’s website earlier. Dale then checked the Coast Guard briefings and was concerned that the bridge was closed until the end of March. The write-up was very confusing, but it looked to me like it SHOULD open on-demand. There was a number to call the coast guard so I called. The very helpful guy gave me two contact numbers for the bridge and said to call back if they didn’t work (since they’re frequently wrong). One was a non-stop busy signal. The other was a gentleman who said he no longer worked there but he happily gave me the new supervisor’s number. I called that one and left a message. Then, I dug around the city’s website some more and called some numbers listed on the bridge rebuild project pages.

Circling around for probably an hour was not easy and Dale was freaking out a bit (worried we’d have to turn around and retrace our steps all the way back to Fort Pierce). When no one answers your VHF calls, it makes you start wondering if it’s working. Eventually, the bridge operator called us on 09 and said we could come through whenever we “thought the crane was out of the way enough” (Dale thought he said “if we think we can get under the boom of the crane”). The crane had just moved out and then appeared to be moving back again, so we said we’d wait. We were fairly astounded that his instructions were to let him know when we FELT like it MIGHT be safe!!!! That’s not how these bridges are supposed to work! He called back a short while later and said that the crane was moving out and we’d be clear to come through. So we did. It was nerve-wracking, after an already rough last hour. Tight squeeze!!

We got to the next bridge about 2 minutes late and the bridge-tender there was horribly rude. I circled around, waiting for the next opening 30 minutes later. Dale hailed again before that opening and she scolded us for calling a 2nd time. Dale was very polite and she eventually opened the bridge. I had to drive very slowly to wait for the bridge to open all the way (without entering too soon, which she’d warned us not to do). She then called on VHF and scolded me for going too slow!! This was not fun. We thanked her politely, as we do after each bridge, and moved along.

Luckily, almost every bridge operator has been beyond friendly! I guess she was just having a bad day. Dale’s theory was that my phone calls to the people in charge of the Jupiter bridge had gotten that bridge-tender in trouble and this one was mad at us in solidarity.

I did also get a call back from one of the people I’d left a message for at the Jupiter bridge. He was very nice and warned us of a bridge that’s broken farther south. Luckily, that’s below West Palm and I told him we’d go offshore from here on.

West Palm at Last

By the end of the “Bridge Hell” day on Thursday, we’d made it to the North end of Lake Worth. We had one more bridge to contend with the next morning, a 65’ one that’s reportedly much lower at all but the lowest of low tides, so we’d deal with that one during Friday’s morning low tide.

Some Pics

We were so happy to happen upon this little sand bar anchorage and relax that we didn’t really get any good photos of it. The first pic below is from the beach looking out towards our boat. The second is from our boat and you can barely see the little beach.