Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Marine Stadium in Miami - at anchor

 

The Julie Tuttle bridge - It doesn’t look imposing but when you’re 55.3 ft and the bridge is only 56 ft, you pay attention.

The trip to Marine Stadium was only 25 miles but there were many bridges. The reason we had not taken the route before was due to the Julia Tuttle bridge with a clearance of 56 ft. We top out at 55.3 ft and I had thought it was a little too close. However, with unfavorable winds for the next two days and the resulting prospect of sitting in Ft Lauderdale to wait for better weather for a trip down the coast - we thought the trip down the ICW to Miami held promise. 

Hoolie’s favorite ride

With some research, we learned that many boats with a mast height similar to ours made the trip successfully. As insurance, we picked a day when there was a drain tide to ensure we would have enough clearance even if that meant waiting a couple of hours for the lowest of the low tide. 

As things turned out, we reached the Julia Tuttle bridge with 1 ft of tide and saw the height board at 56 ft. Since we were certain of our mast height at 55.3 feet and we had heard from others that the boards were accurate - we proceeded through without incident. 


We always have nice sunsets in Marine Stadium - it’s a quiet night too

If you were to look into Marine Stadium as you approached the area, you would think there was no room. There are boats everywhere! From experience, we knew that looks were deceiving and motored to the far northeastern end of the anchorage. We found a good spot with plenty of room, put out all our 3/8 inch BBB chain (90 ft) and could probably withstand anything short of a hurricane with the resulting 10:1 scope. 

We will spend the next two days here and then move on to Key Largo on Thursday for four more days to let the high winds pass. A two day calm period is forecast and we will take advantage of it to reach Key West on 1/31/2023. It will be a few days after our reservations of 1/28 but that’s cruising - you don’t argue with the weather gods. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now you understand how we feel at every bridge on the ICW. 65’ to tip of antenna! :)

Fred Brillo said...

FYI. The green side of the channel 75 to 100 yards from the north side of the bridge shoals very quickly.

These are my home waters and have personally had to wait out high-tide to get off on a couple of occasions with my 4ft draft.