Sailing the Intracoastal Waterway

[Salty John]

By the way, anyone interested in the ICW would find this website informative:

http://cruisersnet.net/

 

[michael_w]

I've done the ICW a few times. Best bit is North Carolina and the courtesy from the bridge tenders. So unlike the bolshy lot in The Netherlands.
Chatting with friends, the ones who's boats fitted easily ie: 6'6" max draught and 62' air draught loved the ICW. Those who's boats only just fitted hated it!

It was great to be able to make reasonable progress in adverse weather conditions, passing comments about people's excerable taste in architecture!

 

[colind3782]

I did a weekend sailing from St. Augustine when I was in FL anyway and found it quite pleasant. However, you certainly had to watch the draught as the tide changes on the way in and out to the sea.

 

[Cruiser2B]

As Salty John noted - off-shore's faster - and with the freezing cold weather the US enjoyed in November, we only ICWed from Norfolk to Beaufort, plus an afternoon from Wrightsville to the Cape Fear River; from there it was direct to Fernandina and another offshore hop down to Fort Lauderdale; we passed Daytona late on a cold, dark and squally night - what joy!

We did very similar, but stopped in at Charleston, then went in at St Augustine and went down the ditch to Fort Pierce. We went through Daytona in the afternoon in torrential rain - it too was a joy, particularly dealing with the myopic bridge tender who couldn't see us from 200 yards away.

 

[Robin]

We did very similar, but stopped in at Charleston, then went in at St Augustine and went down the ditch to Fort Pierce. We went through Daytona in the afternoon in torrential rain - it too was a joy, particularly dealing with the myopic bridge tender who couldn't see us from 200 yards away.

i guess that was Main Street or Memorial bridge, they argued with me on our first passage, from St Augustine in our then mobo, that we had plenty of clearance. The guage said 20ft and we needed 21ft even with aerials down, we did go through OK and the smart-ass crowed on the VHF 'see I told you you had PLENTY of clearance. apparently there is another 2ft dead centre, but heck. Locals afterwards said they would ask if the city had proper andadequate insurance cover in place, apparently that question was usually followed by a prompt bridge lifting. Little people given power to intimidate..:disgust: