Jacksonville to West Palm Beach Recommendations

[bstanton]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered on this forum a million other times.
Need to get a new to me 42' Cruising Cat from Jacksonville to West Palm to make a load date. Having her shipped to Ensenada Mexico. I have lots of coastal cruising experience but none of that is along the coast of Florida and none of it on this boat. The Crew is my wife and 18 yo son, Limited experience.

The Plan is to leave Jacksonville on Tuesday, 12/29 and make it to Palm by Saturday 01/02/2021. The Load Date is 01/03/2021.

That gives me 5 days. I prefer to go outside but would like to do day trips and pull in to a Marina over night along the way. Any advice on nice Marinas along the way with Transient docking?

The Weather looks a little sketchy Mid week so I am curious about the ICW from Canaveral to Palm Beach. My bridge clearance is 60'

Thanks in advance for any advice or information that you may have.

Happy New Year to all.
Brian

[Meandercp]

I don't think you are going to get to do much outside leaving Tuesday. Looking at the Windy app, it appears that by Wednesday morning (5:00ish am) the wind along the coast is going to have a southern component. It builds more from the south as the week goes on. If you get out of the St. Johns River at Jacksonville very early you might be able to get to St. Augustine before dark on Tuesday. Unless you are pretty familiar with that inlet, it is not a good one for an inexperienced crew, especially if it starts getting dark. The days are fairly short right now.

So I think this is going to be a trip down the Intracoastal Waterway. It is a little over 300 miles from Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale. If you can average 7-8 knots for 9-10 hours per day (bridges, currents, docking, and getting going each day will slow you down) you will be OK.

Have a good trip.

[Snore]

Check the weather forecast. It is butt ugly for a run down the coast. As much as I hate the ditch, given the schedule —-take it!

With a cat, you are going to need to call ahead for a “T” dock. Whoever will take you will have to be acceptable,

[bstanton]

Thank you Meander and Snore for the advice. You confirmed my instincts about the outside track with the current weather forecast. I took possession of the boat on Monday. 12/28. After a 2hour crash course on the boat and systems from the previous owner and some advice from the Ortega Landing manager about local bridge schedules and tides we set off to ride the outgoing tide to Palm Cove. Was like a trip down the lazy river at 10 it’s. . Gave us a head start as I was originally planned to leave Tuesday. Feeling better about making West Palm by Saturday. Only averaged 6kts today with wind and current . Plenty of time to learn what I don’t know about the boat
. First Time ICW so it is Interesting but scary how fast you can run out of water.
Happy New year!
Brian

[Chotu]

Do they plan to pull your mast and stow it horizontally for the shipment to Mexico?

If so, you could take a great deal of pressure off and vastly speed the miles made per day by pulling the mast at Ortega and putting it on deck.

Then you can just fly down the ICW without dealing with all the bridge BS.

Edit: saw your most recent post. Already underway. So my idea may not be as appealing. Next time. Ha ha

[bobnlesley]

Perhaps too late for the OP to read, but if you're going via the ICW, then get in the miles/hours over the first couple of days; the bridges south from Fort Pierce made that stretch painfully slow for us.