On the move again

Boca Raton Lighthouse

We had a fun time in Ft. Lauderdale.  As soon as Doug left the boat early Sunday afternoon, the winds started blowing and haven't stopped yet.  Sunday evening we went to check on Claude and Pascale after not seeing much of them with all of our visitors.  We unexpectedly stayed for dinner and had a marvelous time way too late into the night.  We won't mention any names, but someone had an AFD on Monday despite it being happy hour when the four of us went to dinner.  Ray and I had to use our left over drink tokens from Friday night.
The winds made for a very restless night for both of us, but we were untying the multiple lines on the boat and off the dock by 7:15 this morning.  Our first encounter was a mega yacht waiting to get towed up the New River.  It was neat to see how they stage and do that.
It was a busy day with many bridges.  Some we needed opened so we were usually waiting.  At one time there were seven of us waiting, including Claude and Pascale on "Septembre" when they caught up to us.  Then sometimes we would pass some of those same boats as they were waiting for another bridge that we did not need open.  It was back and forth like that for most of the day with a couple of them.
In Lake Worth we were looking forward to our last bridge opening of the day.  A couple of the boats were just ahead of us, and we couldn't quite make it.  We assumed we would catch the one on the next half hour opening.  We called about ten minutes prior to their scheduled opening only to find out that they close for an hour and a half during rush hour because the bridge is under construction.  I don't know what their main job source was there, but rush hour was 3:00 - 5:15 p.m.  If you're keeping track, yes, this is the same bridge that was under construction a year and a half ago and we got caught at it in just about the same circumstances.  It had already been a long day and we still had about two hours before we would reach our intended anchorage.  We eased up to the bridge's tide board.  It read about 15 feet minimum clearance.  Of course this bridge did not tell us what the additional clearance was as some do, usually 3 or 4 feet.  Ray decided to take our anchor light down as it is the highest thing atop of our radar arch.  We went slow with the current thankfully against us, but found we had plenty of room even if he had not removed the light.  Whew!  That saved us about an hour and a half of waiting.
We continued on, finally getting a good push once we were north of Lake Worth Inlet, with not even an hour left to take advantage of it.  We anchored at the north end of Lake Worth near North Palm Beach ten hours after we started traveling today.  Claude and Pascale stopped by after bringing Maggie to shore to say good bye.  They will be continuing north tomorrow as we will turn west to head across Lake Okeechobee.