Waterway Guide Discussion Board

Great news for the St. Lucie Inlet and surrounding waterways. As you may have heard for quite a while the inlet and crossroads are shoaled in and the St. Lucie inlet can be tricky in any weather. In fact, this is the reason we call it an OUTLET: if the weather is good you can plan to go out from the St. Lucie but DO NOT plan to come inshore if the weather is bad or in the dark of night or in any fog. Now a dredge and 2 tugs are on location and it may be setting up to start dredging the inlet. We witnessed the tugs bring the dredge equipment into the Fort Pierce Inlet on Monday, three tugs, the crane barge, dredge and all 1000 feet of discharge pipe. Try staying in the narrow ICW channel with all of THAT in tow. Fort Pierce Inlet is a ship channel or as some call it a Class A inlet. Mariners, it looks like good times are coming so if any of you are returning from the Bahamas this spring check Waterway Guide updates to see if the dredge operation is complete. Otherwise plan to return to the US into either Lake Worth Inlet at Palm Beach or head a little further north with a kick from the Gulf Stream and come into the ICW via Fort Pierce Inlet. We prefer Fort Pierce because it is a small town area and the customs and immigration office is a short cab ride from any of 4 nearby marinas. More as it happens!

Yikes! The dredge we saw anchored near the St. Lucie Inlet was NOT for that inlet dredging. Boo-hiss. Yesterday we spoke to Captain Pat of TowboatUS Stuart, FL and he explained the dredge was scheduled to do beach replenishment near Jupiter Inlet, the next inlet south. Unfortunately the dredge is just hanging out near the St. Lucie Inlet until it's time to start the Jupiter Project. More room in the Stuart ICW I guess. Captain Pat said the St. Lucie Inlet dredge operation is being sent out for bid. We believe this because the dredging issue is a major local boating concern and the local news TV stations have been reporting on this issue. Keep your fingers crossed that the bids come back soon!

See you on the water,

Chris & Alyse Caldwell
772-205-1859
http://www.CaptainChrisYachtServices.com
Building Cruising Confidence as a Couple….Living the Dream

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Thanks for the update Mike. This gives us something to look forward to. We'll be down in the crossroads of Stuart a great deal throughout February and March with trawler training trips and can send in some photos of the dredging operation. It's quite interesting to see the day shapes and discharge pipe location as well as other indicators of this work in action. If you've never experienced meeting a dredge in service it could be daunting but it does not need to be. We'll keep you informed when it really starts up!