Planing Trip to St. Johns River or Closer

Trip Planning

I'm hoping for some input from local (South Florida) Sailors on this trip.

We took a driving weekend up to St. Augustine at the end of August (appropriately) and checked out the Anchorages, Moorings and Dock options close to the St. Augustine Municipal Marina, we also chatted to a couple of sailors that were visiting the area by boat.

So, we're looking at cruising North from Port Everglades with possible destinations of anywhere between here and Jacksonville (St. Johns River) 

If you have cruised in this area and have any input I would appreciate that. And yes, We have access to Active Captain, The Waterway Guide, Navionics, and Garmin Maps. It's the Local knowledge we're looking for.

Major Points of Entry in from Ocean to Florida.

Despite one of the highest boating densities on the East Coast of the USA, there are surprisingly few Inlets from the Ocean between Jacksonville & Miami, for our trip which will be from Port Everglades, these are the Inlets that will allow our boat passage (draft restriction of 5'7")

• Port Everglades - 11nm
• Hillsboro Inlet -  36nm
• Lake Worth Inlet - 52nm
• Fort Pierce - 30nm
• Sebastian Inlet - (Fixed Bridge) 10ft. 35nm -> 65nm.
• Port Canaveral - 58nm
• Ponce De Leon Inlet - 100nm
• St. Johns River Entrance

Total Distance as the Condor Flies to St. Johns River  - About 300 nm. But we'll add 20% to that for going around the corners. So about 360 nautical miles. If we 'Sail' or 'Motor' we'll be doing around 5knts or better.

Which will take about 72 hours of sailing and, realistically we would sail about 6 hours a day, so a 12 day trip if we didn't take any excursions, which we will!

We can look forward to a 24 day trip plus time off, let's say a month.There's a challenge. We're not committed to going all the way to St. Johns River, just going to Lake Worth would be a good start, but I do favor the longer trip. We have motored from Stuart to our Dock, but that was our delivery trip from the boat purchase to our dock in Fort Lauderdale, we really didn't have time to stop and look around any of the marina/anchorage areas on that trip.

A quick and dirty day#  plan: 

1. Home dock to Port Everglades to Hillsboro Inlet - 4 hours.
2. Hillsboro Inlet to Lake Worth - 9 Hours
3. Day at Lake Worth
4. Lake Worth to Fort Pierce 12 Hours (long day)
5. Day at Fort Pierce
6. Fort Piece to Sebastian Inlet - 7 Hours
7. Day at Sebastian
8. Sebastian Inlet to Port Canaveral - 9 Hours
9. Day at Port Canaveral
10. Port Canaveral to Ponce De Leon Inlet 13 Hours (long day)
11. Day at Ponce De Leon
12. Ponce De Leon to St. Johns River - 20 hours ( Overnight)
13. Day at St. Johns
14. Day at St. Johns
15. Return Journey

Any good ideas for things not to miss?

Paul