Friday 1/19/2018 - North Lake Worth to Boca Raton

After spending the night in a sleeping bag covered by blankets, I got up at 5:30 and prepared to be underway at first light.  I wore my normal northern winter attire plus my bibbed foul weather pants, a fleece, a vest, and my warm foul weather jacket, and my winter gloves.  I'd say I was "comfortable".  I left the North Lake Worth anchorage at 7, only to find out that all the commercial "sport fish" boats leave between 7 and 8 - heading for the Lake Worth Inlet about 3 miles south.  A sport fisher boat is usually about 50 to 70 feet long, are very heavy, and produce a very big wake.  Over that 3 miles, I was passed by about 8 of them.  Three or 4 gave me a "slow pass".  I was invisible to the others.  I'm sure it costs them $10 dollars in gas to slow down and speed back up but it IS the courteous thing to do - and they know it.  By 10am, it had warmed up enough that I was able to shed some of my winter clothing.  It turned out to be a pretty nice day - the boat warmed up to 72 degrees by the time I dropped my anchor in Lake Boca (Boca Raton). 

What made it a great day was that my friend Bruce Dandt had given me a tip yesterday for navigating the draw bridges of south Florida.  He identified the bridges that are required to open, creates a waypoint for each, and  transfers the waypoints to his chartplotter.  Then, as he motors down the ICW, he finds the next bridge and selects it as a waypoint to "Navigate to".  That creates a screen that constantly shows you the distance and the expected time of arrival (based on your current speed).   If the expected time of arrival is 5 minutes after noon for a bridge that opens on the hour, speeding up a little may get you there on time to make the opening.  Last night, I spent a couple hours creating all the waypoints and this morning, I put them into the chartplotter.  Needless to say, it worked GREAT!!  Thanks Bruce!!!