Florida & Georgia - West Palm to Islamorada...best ride coastal...

Just curious, presuming fairly identical conditions from 1 mile to 5 miles out, is the ride smoother at 1 mile versus 5, 5 v 1, or it doesn't matter?

Thanks.

Just hope for an East wind..... SE or S and you will be in a head sea for 150 miles....

do the ocean. you will slit your wrists by ft. liquordale with all of the slow no fun zones.

Closer in you get some rippy stuff around the inlets (BR, HI, PE, HO etc)...I ran nearshore once on a nice day (1-3's) but got my butt handed to me passing the inlets...on an outgoing tide there were 4-6's outside PE and HO.

Ended up ducking in at Govt cut and running the inside...a little slower, but more fun IMO.

Anther thought: at five miles out, you are running against the stream, so will impact your distance made good and fuel use.

In the Keys, form 1 t0 about 3 miles out is Hawk Channel. Which will be full of lobster buoys after this weekend. So, if the wind is E or SE only 10-12 knots or so, it will be an easier run "outside" the reef.

Four replies and four very helpful answers...thanks guys!

One last thought: off Broward and Dade counties, if you run near-shore, you will have to dodge a crapload off boats...one mile off is still in the reef system, so there would be a plethora of fishing and diving vessels.....

I would suggest running outside the reefs along the mainland...in 200'+ of water until you get to Miami...from there, if the seas are nice, just keep cruising down hawks channel (watching for the pots)...if crappy seas duck in at Port of Miami or Ceasars Creek and then run the rest on the inside until you get to Tavinier Creek or Snake Creek if you have a tower or high clearance.

I did this trip in nasty conditions once when we picked up our new boat in Stuart. The trip will take FOREVER if you run inside, if at all possible stay on the outside. We did it in 6-8's from stuart, falling to 5-7's around west palm, all a quartered head sea. Turning at West Palm helped as it was more of a side sea at that point and then the wind died down into 3-5's. We stayed just a bit off the beach the whole way where we could. We then ducked in as soon as we could into the bay and ran the inside into the keys. Was a fun trip overall.

For the above trip, we kept wanting to escape the seas into the ICW, but every time we did it was bridge and no-wake city and took FOREVER. So painful. I'd say the inlets were by far the most dangerous part of our trip - they can get super nasty with 20-25+ winds.

A short rant, the ICW was designed specifically to give a passageway when the seas are up. All the manatee folks and people that built a house and think the ICW is their personal lake sure have destroyed the original - and valuable purpose.

:banghead:

Just avoid running down the reef line, or inside the reef line. This is where all the divers and dive boats will be. Decrease your odds of having to slolum dive flags and or hitting a diver by staying outside the whole grop. If your in 200+ feet of water you will save yourself a lot of headaches.