Lake Worth/Palm Beach/West Palm Beach

12/28/14
Lake Worth FL, ICW
Position: 26 44.878N, 080 02.643W
Posted by Bill

For our old neighbors…here is an interesting story that I forgot to write about yesterday. When we anchored in Peck Lake, we were next to a smaller McGregor sailboat that had a local guy who was staying there for the weekend. He saw the hailing port on the stern of Island Bound (which reads Columbus, Ohio), and he yells over “What part of Columbus are you from?”. After we replied that it was Powell, he says “My brother lives in Powell…do you know Michael Marchiondo (sp)?” We are like “OMG yes…he lived in our neighborhood!” Blew me away!

After the ICW boat traffic died last night, Peck Lake was delightful. It was peaceful and all you could hear was the sound of the ocean. We almost opted to stay another day and enjoy the beach, but we wanted to keep getting south while we had good weather. After we got past the Lake Peck area, the ICW started to change to row after row of mega homes and larger boats.
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These were just a sampling. We continue to be amazed at how many people have that much money.

We also started to see more places that you could tie up to and eat and drink. If we weren’t in such a hurry….
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Then there was this cool lighthouse, but I can’t remember where it was exactly. Check out the Christmas decorations on it.
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Once again, the boat traffic was horrific, and it got even worse when we got in to Lake Worth. More boats, and more boats going fast and throwing a large wake. It was making me crazy. Lake Erie is bad like that on the weekends, but never as bad as the last couple days on the ICW. Today we had to deal with 7 lift bridges. We timed them pretty well except for one, but it is not fun dealing with trying to control your boat in wind and tide while waiting for the openings…especially with all of the other boats.

As we got close to the ocean inlet we rounded an island called Peanut Island. There were dozens of boats anchored around it and lots of people in the water drinking and having a good time. Lots of kayaks and paddle boards too, many of them in the middle of the channel. So picture dozens of drunk obstacles and dozens of boats zooming around with no regard for anyone else on the water, and throw in the fact that if you go outside of the narrow channel you will run aground. Not at fun day of passage.

We anchored south of the ocean inlet in Lake Worth, with Palm Beach east of us and West Palm Beach west of us. Here is what it looks like:
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We will hang out here until the weather allows us to go “outside” to Fort Lauderdale, which is probably Tuesday based on the current forecast. Going “outside” means transiting via the ocean versus the ICW. From Lake Worth to Fort Lauderdale, there are 21 bridges that require us to wait for their lift schedule, and there is a section called the Canyon that is concrete on both sides of the ICW. Apparently, the boat wakes from the power boats just bounce from side to side, creating a nasty condition for us slow boats. No thank you!!

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