River Run

The chart showed 45ft of vertical clearance, and I knew the boat should be able to pass under the bridge. Still, there was that nagging voice in my head that wouldn’t let me be. “What if your air draft calculations were wrong?” it said. “And if you’re just a little too high the mast will come down on you like a telephone pole in a hurricane.” Fortunately First Draft, my friend Richie Levine’s Catalina 25, put her shoulder down and sailed under the low bridge with several feet to spare. I exhaled in relief. Phew! What other challenges lay ahead?

Richie and I were partway through a voyage I’d long wanted to make: southbound on Florida’s St. Johns River, setting out from the Ortega River near Jacksonville and heading toward the end of the navigable water at Sanford, on Lake Monroe, 163 miles above