Exploring New Inlets While “Hooking” Our Way to Fort Lauderdale!

It’s a very rewarding experience, for us, when we have an opportunity to explore new inlets, coves, and potential anchorages while cruising AND we end up throwing the hook for the night. The previous times we’ve cruised north or south between Stuart and Fort Lauderdale we’ve always traveled past Peck Lake, Lake Worth, Lake Boca Raton, and Lake Sylvia without ever stopping let alone anchoring. We’ve either been in too much of a hurry to get somewhere else or didn’t have the time, all that is different this trip south on the East Coast ICW.

Peck Lake is not so much a lake than it is a very large indentation off of the ICW south of Jensen Beach/Stuart area, it is separated from the ocean by Jupiter Island. We spent a windy night on the hook there with eight to ten other boats, with the crashing sound of ocean waves shifting their way over the sand dunes that protected the anchorage, it was a wonderful place to call home for the night.

The next day we worked our way only 20 miles south to anchor in the northern reaches of Lake Worth. We were looking forward to meeting up with our friend Rick on Wishing Star. Much to our surprise, our paths crossed while we were heading south and he was taking guests north for a day trip. This did give us an opportunity to take photos of his new boat underway. We’ve shared many boating experiences with Rick over the years and were looking forward to seeing him for a short bit as we made our to the anchorage in Lake Worth, close to Old Port Cove Marina where Rick was docked.

We arrived at our anchor spot in Lake Worth and were treated to a beautiful sunset.

Thirty-four more miles, still moving south towards Fort Lauderdale the following day, found us at Lake Boca Raton. My research showed that Lake Boca Raton is a nice little anchorage, it typically has only four or five boats anchored overnight. Like Peck Lake, Lake Boca Raton is an indentation off of the ICW except there is an inlet to the Ocean here. When we arrived, much to our surprise, the cove-sized Lake was filled almost to capacity with anchored party boats, it was a perfect sunny Saturday afternoon and everyone who had a boat seemed to have migrated to Lake Boca Raton. We found a spot to drop our hook and settled in for a very entertaining afternoon and early evening. By nightfall nearly everyone had pulled anchor to go home – in the end, there was only a handful of boats anchored with us for the night.

Last, but not least, on our “hooking” expedition, we continued our southerly journey on Sunday morning and traveled another 17 miles to throw our hook into Lake Sylvia, a very nicely protected body of water off of the ICW in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, the boating capital of the world – only three miles from Cooley’s Landing Marina, where we stayed for a week.

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