Memorial Day Weekend Cruise - 2025 Pt. 3

Memorial Day Weekend Cruise - 2025 - Planning the trip home.

Making the assumption that we get to Jensen Beach for the Memorial Day Weekend, we're looking at the trip home - From the Jensen Beach Mooring Field back to our Dock in Fort Lauderdale.

The Route from Jensen Beach Mooring field is around 37nm and should take just over 7 hours in good weather.

I really like Aqua maps, the Route explorer provides plenty of info about any route. In this case, it shows 36.3nm, 7:15 total time ( hours ) and we would use 4.8Gallons of diesel if we motored all the way. There's 1 fixed bridge on the route and if we needed to refuel, then it's $4.15 per Gallon.

( YES I KNOW - it's a sailboat, Sailboats do not sail in straight lines ) 

Like the arrival at the St. Lucie Inlet, timing is also important when leaving the Inlet.

We're staying at Jensen Beach on the Mooring Ball Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, departing for Lake Worth on Monday Morning. St. Lucie High Tide on Monday May 26th is 10:40 and the Inlet is about 90 minutes from the Mooring field.  So if we leave the mooring field at 09:00, we'll transit the Inlet around 10:30. ( According to Aqua Maps, it should take 1:39 hours : mins. 

We'll plan to stay about 1nm off of the coast to ensure we're not fighting the Gulfstream's northerly flow. Same as the Route north, we'll duck into Lake Worth on Monday and have a Mooring reserved for that evening. Tuesday morning we'll depart out of the Lake Worth Inlet and turn South, staying pretty close to shore again and we should be at Hillsboro Inlet on Tuesday May 27th around mid afternoot, a good time for the High Tide at 15:10.

So that completes the sailing plans.

Summary of the Return Trip:

• Monday - Jensen Beach 09:00 Depart the Mooring field
• Monday - St. Lucie Inlet 09:30 Exit the inlet
• Monday - Lake Worth - Mid afternoon - Mooring Ball
• Tuesday - Lake Worth - Drop the Mooring Ball
• Tuesday - Hillsboro Inlet - 15:00 - 16:00 Enter the Inlet
• Tuesday - Dock - Arrive an hour later.

Looks to be an exciting trip, we'll get to test our new Riding Sail, maybe I'll get the new Batteries installed by then too. 

I'm working on a post about how to export a route from Aqua Maps to Google Maps, that would be cool.

See you on the water.

Paul