The Bridges of Jacksonville

We had to go under or through 8 different bridges to get up this river!

Todd

2/2/20257 min read

(I’m a little behind real-time here… these events took place on Jan 14 - 15.)

I am learning so much about east coast geography on this trip! Turns out, Jacksonville is not actually on the coast. Possibly I’m the only one who thought it was on the coast. From the Atlantic ocean proper, it is a good 25 miles up the St. Johns River to get to downtown Jacksonville, and it is another 5 miles past that to get to the marina we’re staying at.

When you’re doing 5 knots against the current motoring on a sailboat, that is SIX HOURS up a river to get to the marina. One definitely wouldn’t want to do that for an overnight stay, but this particular marina is locally known as a good spot for getting boat work done and we knew we were going to be there for a few weeks for some upgrades and repairs.

In the course of going up the St Johns River, we passed under or through EIGHT bridges over the course of two days. (We missed the 4 pm rush hour cutoff for the lifting bridge, and had to anchor overnight downriver from it) Each was unique and interesting in its own way. I took picture of each bridge and I thought it might be fun to post a pic and write a little blurb about each.

I am going to rate each of these bridges on:

Coolness factor - like was it particularly tall, was it a drawbridge, did I have to talk to a bridge operator, etc. 1 - boring, 5 - super cool.

Pucker factor - Did I think my mast was going to hit this bridge or was it particularly narrow to motor through the bridge 1 - easy peasy, 5 - nerve wracking !

Luthien’s mast is 70 feet tall plus 2 more feet for wind instruments, for a total of 72 feet of “air draught”, as boat people call it. This will be useful to know when discussing pucker factor, below.

Dames Point Bridge
(Napoleon Bonaparte Broward Bridge)

Named after Napolean Bonaparte Broward, a former Governor of Florida. Yes someone gave their kid first and middle names “Napolean Bonaparte” 50 years after the original guy died, and they weren’t even French. You may remember the hanging chads in Broward county in 2000. Same guy.

Huge concrete cable stayed bridge that I-295 passes over. This bridge was finished in 1989 and has a sweeping 1300 ft central span with a soaring 175 ft of clearance under it. And yet, it looks so elegant for such a huge object. It is a very impressive structure.

coolness - 4
pucker - 1

Matthews Bridge
(John E Matthews Bridge)

Named after John E Matthews, former Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. Steel truss bridge finished in 1953. Painted a fun red color but otherwise kind of a run of the mill steel bridge. Did have an excellent 150 ft of clearance below the bridge so low pucker factor on this one.

Coolness - 2
Pucker - 1

Hart Bridge
(Isaiah David Hart Bridge)

Another steel truss bridge, this one was finished in 1967. Named after Isaiah Hart, the founder of Jacksonville (and slave owner). Painted a fun tropical blue color, like the waters in the Florida Keys. This bridge is somewhat interesting because it is the third longest single span of any truss bridge in the world. Also a good 141 ft of clearance below the bridge, so no worries passing under this one.

Coolness - 3
Pucker - 1

Main St. Bridge
(John T Alsop Jr Bridge)

Named after a former mayor of Jacksonville. Large steel truss bridge, finished in 1941, that passes right by downtown. This bridge is painted bright blue and is a raising bridge! That is, the central span raises on request. We had to hail the bridge operator on the VHF and get him to raise the bridge for us.

“Main St. Bridge, Main St. Bridge, This is Luthien”. “Luthien, this is Main St. Bridge. Please spell out your vessel name for us.” They ask this because apparently they have to log all vessels that pass through the bridge. I was waiting for this moment and got to bust out the NATO phonetic alphabet which I had been practicing. “Copy that, Main St. Bridge. That is Luthien - Lima Uniform Tango Hotel India Echo November”. “Copy that, Luthien”. I get a kick out of playing sailor on the radio!

It’s pretty wild that two private citizens on tiny sailboat can request that this huge bridge on a major thoroughfare to raise and stop traffic for just us. I felt mildly guilty for the dozens of commuters we held up, but we needed to get up that river. And they knew what they were signing up for when they decided to route across that bridge anyways.

Coolness - 5
Pucker - 2

(Also I had a ton of fun making this clip. I am teaching myself to edit videos using DaVinci Resolve and this is the first time I’ve sped up a video).

Acosta Bridge
(Saint Elmo W Acosta Bridge)

Named after a former city councilman. Which, all previous bridges were named after governors, state supreme court justices, etc. Seems weird to name a bridge after a lowly city councilman. Finished in 1991. I’m not gonna lie, this is an ugly bridge. I’ve been reading a little about “brutalist architecture” recently and this is a brutalist bridge.

Additionally, recall Luthien’s 72 ft air draught from earlier? This bridge has 75 ft of clearance at high tide, and it had just been a full moon, so we were really wondering if we were going to lose the wind instruments at the top of the mast on this one. Fortunately, we passed under with no issues.

Coolness - 1
Pucker - 5

FEC Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge
(That's its actual name)

Named after Joseph Baermann Strauss, the bridge’s designer, who was also the Chief Engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge. Finished in 1925, it is the oldest bridge on our list. This is a steel truss bridge that is railroad only. This bridge was also unattractive but I’ll give it a couple of extra coolness points because it is a drawbridge that is always open unless there is a train passing over it, the golden gate bridge connection, and seniority. Since it was open for us, it was stress free to pass through.

Coolness - 3
Pucker - 1

Fuller Warren Bridge

Named after Fuller Warren, former Florida Governer, former Jacksonville City Councilman, and former KKK member. But then he changed his mind about the KKK later in life. Or so he claims.

Turns out this is the newest bridge on our list, finished in 2002. Another conventionally unattractive concrete bridge. This one also had only 75’ of clearance under it, so pucker factor was somewhat elevated, but we were more comfortable now after passing through the other 75’ clearance bridge.

coolness - 1
Pucker - 3

Ortega Bridge

So named because it is on the Ortega River. Unclear who the namesake is after a due diligence amount of googling. This bridge is the second oldest on our list, finished in 1928.

This is fun little bridge, it has only has 9 ft of clearance above the river, but it has an old-school drawbridge, like both sides of the bridge open. This one opens on demand as well, so you have to talk to the bridge operator on the VHF radio. It has ornamental concrete railings and four cute little tender houses on each corner of the draw. Only one of those is actually occupied - the others are also ornamental.

This one has a high pucker factor based on my subjective experience. When the draw bridges are open, the space between the two sides of the bridge isn’t that big - like 78 ft. Luthien has a 24 ft. beam (width), so there isn’t a lot of room for error on either side. We had a knot of current with us as we approached this one, and Captain Terri was coming in a little hot in my opinion - 6 knots speed over ground. As we approach the bridge, I’m like “Umm are you really going through this bridge at 6 knots?”

So we did slow down to like 3 knots to go through the actual bridge and everything was fine.

The marina was less than half a mile from that last bridge and so we docked relatively easily.

Epilogue

So there you have it! As I'm writing this on Sun Feb 2, we've had a busy 2 weeks of inventorying and organizing all of our boat parts and spares, replacing the air conditioner in the owners hull, attempting to fix the old ice maker, getting a new ice maker, and figuring out where all our provisions are going to be stored. We are (hopefully!) 2 - 3 days away from finishing the big battery / electrical system upgrade. More on all of that, in a subsequent blog.

  • Todd