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Where the money piles up

 

Another day on the Intracoastal Waterway. The ICW is an inshore sea channel that runs from Miami to New York. The channel is dredged, so you can't stray much off course before you run aground. Just a boatlength outside the marked channel, it may be as little as 50 centimeters of water. So you have to pay attention and watch both the markers and the chart plotter all the time.

 

South Florida is also full of bascule (opening) bridges, which we are too tall to pass under. They usually open every half hour. When we approach, we have to call up the bridge keepers and tell them that we want to pass. They then tell us when the next bridge opening is. The bridge is open for just a couple of minutes, so you have to be there in time. If not, you have to wait half an hour for the next opening. It is frustrating to approach a raised bridge, knowing that we won't reach it and have to wait for the next opening...

 

Today, we passed sixteen bridges, and had to wait half an hour for three of them.

 

The ICW in South Florida is lined with multi-million dollar homes and yachts. It's interesting to drive the boat through this exclusive neighbourhood with millionaires and billionaires and look at their small castles.

We are now anchored at West Palm Beach. Tomorrow we will go out of the ICW and go offshore to Cape Canaveral.

 

This is what the Intracoastal Waterway looks like.

 

View from the helm.

 

An average home in South Florida.

 

A Norwegian-American! (Who seems to be pretty well off)

 

The marina inside the anchorage.