As mentioned before we left two hours later than intended. We had a south west wind which would mean we would be sailing on a broad reach. Not perfect but much better than trying to sail directly into the wind. For those not familiar with the Intracoastal Waterway(ICW), it is an inland waterway that parallels the Eastern and Gulf coastline of the United States consisting of natural inlets, bays, and man-made canals. Most of the ICW that we traveled that is navigatable by sailboat is a channel that varied in depth from 7-15 feet and widths of 50-300 feet wide. Traveling outside of this channel is an invitation for running aground quickly. Tacking on the ICW in this area would be a tedious task at best.

One of the interesting aspects about traveling on the intracoastal is that you will meet different kinds of boat traffic. Both pleasure and commercial share the waterway. I use the word “share” loosely! We had little room to get by when we encountered this barge. Don’t sailboats have the right of way?!

Along this route we encountered two draw bridges and several other bridges that we were able to pass under with no problem. There were houses on either side of the waterway for much of the day. Once we were North of Palm Coast, Florida the channel deepened and widened and there were fewer buildings. This part of the ICW was more enjoyable for me because I enjoyed the more natural views of this area and less boat traffic.