Lantana - We eat out at Old Key Lime House with Joe

This is the temporary Southern Blvd Bridge with a clearance of 65 ft but only at low tide!

We got the boat moving again. Right now, we are in an anchorage in Lantana. To get here, we had to go through 11 DRAW BRIDGES! I remember one was called a"lift bridge". Picture a normal, two-lane bridge, but at each corner, there is a tall, piece of scaffolding and when a tall boat wanted to come through, the entire bridge went up. It really wasn't ideal for sailboats, because at low tide, it only was 65 feet tall. Fleetwing barely made the clearance the last one we went through, Nana REALLY didn't like the bridge master. "If you don't get to the bridge at 3:30, I'm not going to open it," He said. I can see why Nana didn't like him. After all, he did sound kinda mean over the radio. A few hours after we anchored, we went to "The Old Key Lime House" so Nana and Grandpa could meet up with some friends of theirs. I had a grilled cheese and fries (I had to order off the kids' menu :( .), and their fries were really good. After, we took Hoolie ashore to again, do his biz. That was all today. Tomorrow, we set sail for Fort Lauderdale.

The place was packed! You'd think they were giving away money!

We usually don't miss any bridges in this stretch of the ICW in Florida since we cruise at 7.3 kts but today was different, we missed four (meaning, we had to wait for the next opening). The complicating factor was the 1.5 to 2.5 kt of adverse current over the entire stretch. That was too much for Fleetwing to overcome. One wonders at how the current can be against you for the entire day, even as you pass inlets where you would think the current would reverse! Half a knot or even a full knot is manageable but not 1.5 to 2.5 kts!

Hoolie guarded Fleetwing while we were gone. You can see our dinghy at their dock, convenient. 

The new news is the vertical clearance of the Southern Blvd bridge. It's supposed to be 65 ft but the bridge operator north of the Blvd bridge was asking each sailboat for their height and warning that the Southern Blvd bridge only had a clearance of 65 ft at low tide, not a high tide. The sailboat behind us had a mast of 63.5 ft and with the 2 ft tide at the time, they decided to stop and stay overnight and leave the next morning at low tide.

We met with Joe Mastri, an old friend from the Poughkeepsie YC for dinner at the Old Key Lime House restaurant. The place was hopping, even on a Tuesday night. They even had a sign posted saying that staying at a table was limited to a maximum of two hours! I've never seen that before. However, the dinner was excellent which is the attraction of the place.

On Wednesday, we make the run through 15 bridges to Ft Lauderdale and hopefully, a mooring. We'll then look at the weather for an outside sail to Miami and a stay at Marine Stadium.