Boating with Sunset Delight: 2023 South: Pompano Beach to No Name Harbor FL

26 November 2023 Sunday

No boat travel.

Today, Clark's high school friend, Karen, and her wife, Rita, came to visit us on our boat. They live in Boca Raton - not too far from where we are docked in Pompano Beach. They arrived just after noon and got a tour of the boat. Karen had lots of questions about living and traveling on a boat.

Then we headed out to a restaurant they recommended for lunch.

Rita, Karen, Eve, and Clark

The food was great and the conversation better. We had a great time. Afterwards, Karen made a quick stop at Publix so that I could grab some provisions. I flew through the store grabbing the items on my list. Meanwhile, Rita ran into a store nearby, and Karen and Clark went to Staples where Karen had an errand to run. We all concluded our business as if we had timed it with stopwatches.

Then Karen drove us back to the boat where we had pumpkin pie a la mode for dessert. It started to rain just as we arrived at the boat. Nevertheless, we sat in the cockpit and stayed mostly dry as we ate our treat and continued to chat about Karen and Clark's classmates from Ocean Township High School.

Rita and Karen

Anyone who follows my blog updates will recognize the sunset picture that I took below. It's new but looks like a lot of past photos of our many stays at this dock.

Clark was able to get much more interesting sunset pictures showing a heron night fishing.

27 November 2023 Monday

Depart: Pompano Beach private dock 9:05

Arrive: No Name Harbor / Cape Florida anchorage 3:55

Distance: ~ 44 nm

We still have a lot of days of meandering before our reservation in Marathon starts on December 15th. Clark decided that we should top up the fuel and water tanks and empty the holding tank at a nearby marina. The fuel price listed at $4.05 sounded better than anything we could expect to find in the Keys.

We had to transit a low bridge to access the Taha Marine Center located on the ICW, south of our friend's house. The bridge only opens on the 15 and 45 minutes past the hour. At 8:33 Clark said let's get going and try to make the 8:45 opening. I said, "I'm good at fire drills on the boat, but you are delusional if you think we can get out of here and to the bridge in less than 10 minutes!" I continued to eat my breakfast.

We agreed to aim to leave at 9:00 and managed to get off the dock at 9:05. We caught the 9:15 opening of the NE 14th Street bridge.

The two guys at the service center, Frank and his boss, were amazing. We managed to do all the jobs we planned, and they asked for our garbage, which I had forgotten about. They were patient saying "no rush, no rush" as we ran about the boat, and they were respectful and polite. All told we spent about 45 minutes at their fuel dock.

The trip to the fuel dock was a "side trip". We chose to backtrack north to get to the Hillsboro Inlet instead of continuing on the ICW to the Fort Lauderdale inlet. We had bridges to wait for in either direction, but all told going north to go south sounded like the better option.

We pulled away from the fuel dock such that we just missed the 10:15 opening of the NE 14th Street. While we waited for the next opportunity, we had to fight being taken into the bridge until the 10:45 option presented itself.

We have not boated south of our friend's house on the ICW for a while. I grabbed some pictures of the waterway as we made our way back north to the Hillsboro Inlet.

Corner lot of dirt piles for sale

House on the water with nice Tiki hut

We passed by "Harbor's Edge Park". I looked it up on Google Maps to get the name and info. Reviews said that the leash laws are strictly enforced here and be prepared with a long leash or plan to go swimming with your puppy. I found it interesting that, as I watched, a park visitor showed up with his dog not on a leash.

Throwing a stick into the water for the dog to fetch

We passed by the lagoon where we were docked last night.

Across the way I saw a "man" standing by a pool.

King Neptune and his trident guarding the pool

Dive boat fully loaded
docked near Hillsboro Inlet

As we waited for the Hillsboro Bridge (opens every 15 minutes), we heard a sportfish boat call the bridge tender. "Inboard for the 11:00 opening. By the way we have no steering." What!? The bridge tender asked if the captain of that boat needed a special opening, and he declined the offer.

Since we had the tide going out, we had the "right of way" to go through the bridge first when it opened. Clark called the disabled boat on the radio to ask if they wanted to come in before we went out. He declined the offer.

When the bridge opened, we proceeded to transit the opening. Someone called on the VHF, "Hey! Outbound boat! What the heck are you doing? We have a boat with no steering over here!"

Clark responded, "I called and spoke to the captain of that boat who told us to proceed first." We heard no more from Mr. Grumpy after that.

As we transited the area, we passed by two Tow Boat U.S. boats. I would bet money that one of those two captains was the one that "barked" at us!

The boat with "no steering" was closely led and followed by the two Tow Boat U.S. boats. He was not being towed. We assumed that he had twin engines and appeared to have control of the boat well in hand as he went through the bridge opening.

Hillsboro Bridge with
Hillsboro Lighthouse in background

As we maneuvered out into the ocean, I realized that we had traveled a total of 4 nautical miles over the past 2 hours. We spent 45 minutes of that time at the fuel dock. Most of the rest was spent waiting for the three bridge openings of the two bridges.

Once out in the ocean, we turned the radio to NPR and sat back to listen to stories as we traveled. We passed Fort Lauderdale and Miami today. Eventually we arrived at No Name Harbor where we dropped anchor for the night.