Blewtooth

Google Earth is the GREATEST!

Do a Google search for “Google Earth” then download the software for it and you will have one of the most enjoyable pieces of geography software ever. A good friend of mine just turned me on to it. Imagine an interactive globe that brings any place that you touch with your finger into view. Just like you are in a space ship landing from outer space. Or, blasting off. It’s really allot of fun.

I have been looking at inlets for days now with it.

As you know from my last post I tend to get very stressed out when it comes to inlets. The first inlet I ever sailed through was the Boca Inlet. It has a reputation and I have talked to a person who lost her runabout in it once upon a time when her motor broke down. She swam for the shore and made it and then watched as her little boat got pounded by the surf. Sea Tow had to drag it off on the next tide. Cost her a bundle, I am sure.

All inlets can be dangerous but especially the small shallow ones.

Other inlets that I have heard can be terrible are Sebastian and Jupiter. I have been through Jupiter on a beautiful day and was shocked when several hours later the weather turned it into a ferocious looking mess. Here is a video of the sail before the wind picked up:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3363931104721794964
Then, here I am, anchored the next day with the wind gusting. I don’t have a video of the inlet but I observed it just two hours after I went through it from the top of the Colonial Bank Building not a half a mile away and it had REALLY changed! Big breakers almost all the way across.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8756255125756123172
As you can see from this video that another problem I tend to have is trying to find a place to land my dinghy. There are a lot of very cranky people out there when it comes to asking them if you can just tie your little row boat up for a day or two. But that’s another story. I am also using Google Earth to find anchorages. You can zoom right in on them and even spot the dinghy landing in some places!

Getting back to inlets; Jupiter Inlet has a fantastic looking lighthouse and is very famous for that alone. Also there is a great story about it written around the turn of the century by one of the original defenders of the America’s Cup. He had taken his new bride with him on a sail around the peninsula of Florida on a shoal draft center board sloop with no motor and became “Caught on a Lee Shore”! The wind had picked up to the point where breakers were completely covering the inlet. His wife was taken off by the life saving crew of the lighthouse and rowed through the surf line. She was wearing one of those long old fashioned dresses. You can imagine what might have happened to her if the boat had capsized while shooting the waves!
Then he and his mate brought the sloop through and barely missed being pounded on a shoal. It is a very exciting read. You can find the story in the book “Tales of Old Florida”

I have sailed with no motor through the Boca Inlet several times but I have been blessed with good weather each time. Only once did we have it a little rough. I used the kicker then and my ten year old daughter after seeing the look of fear on my face, panicked, climbed down in the cabin and began to pray! I have an expressive face that she picked up on and after that she was always reticent to go through that inlet again. The thing about it is that it’s so calm and inviting most of the time. But then, when the weather changes LOOKOUT. Especially when the breakers line up all the way across it. Then it’s best to just try for another inlet if you can. It’s chilling to know that Florida Inlets take on average, six lives a year.

I found a web page by a fellow named Ray McAllister that is very informative about Hillsboro Inlet as well as other inlets with great advice on how to handle getting through on a rough day. Here it is:
http://www.underseas.org/docs/ray-roughinlet.html
He has some experience with the Hillsboro Inlet which has a bigger reputation than Boca I think. Apparently there are some shoals there.
I found a good website about fishing off of jetties:
http://jettyfishing.com/jetties/jetties.php?op=hillsboro and here is an aerial photo of Hillsboro from that site:
http://jettyfishing.com/jetties/jetties.php?op=hillsboro&jetty=hillsboro&imagepath=/jetties/florida/images/hillsboro/aerial/hillsboro_inlet_arial_2.gif

Also, Hillsboro is the inlet where it is believed one of the famous “Barefoot Mailmen of Florida” perished while trying to swim it. .

Hillsboro is a natural inlet while Boca is man made. Hillsboro has a great lighthouse as well. I have never been through Hillsboro but thousands of people go through it every weekend just like all of the rest. Most are in motor boats and many don’t realize the terrible things that can happen if they lose power. Sailors have to be even more careful because we don’t have the power or speed to bend nature to our will.

But after all of that worrying about inlets, they are still the most thrilling part of beach where people fish, party, surf, and beach comb (not good to swim) and I will always try to find the inlet first, every time I go to the beach to park my lounge chair because it is truly where the ocean meets the land (the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object). I could gaze at them for hours from the shore.
Well, back to Google Earth.