Boating, Fishing, and Travel Information for Pompano Beach (Hillsboro Inlet), FL

Yacht landings are on the south shore on either side of the bridge. A depth of 5 feet is at the landings. Berthage, electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, water, ice, some marine supplies, a mobile 10-ton lift, and hull, engine, and electronic repairs are available.

Hillsboro Inlet 31 miles southward of Lake Worth Inlet, connects with Hillsboro River and the Intracoastal Waterway. It has considerable importance as a base for party fishermen who run out into the Gulf Stream. In 1985, the reported controlling depth was 7 feet in the privately maintained channel. The entrance channel is marked by private lights, a daybeacon, and a lighted entrance buoy, and protected by jetties that are partially awash at low tide. Rocky reefs are reported to extend northward and southward of the respective entrance lights; the southern reef is reported to dry at its southern end at low tide.

The current in the entrance is reported to set northward across the channel on the flood, and southward on the ebb. In 1990, shoaling to a depth of about 1 foot was reported at the entrance channel between Lights 1 and 2.

Hillsboro Inlet Entrance Light (26°15’33″N., 80°04’51″W.), 136 feet above the water, is shown from an octagonal pyramidal skeleton tower with central stair cylinder, lower half of structure white, upper half black, on the beach on the north side of the inlet.

Route A1A highway bridge crossing the inlet has a bascule span with a clearance of 13 feet. The bridgetender monitors VHF-FM channel 16 and works on channel 13. On the flood tide the current past the bridge is reported to be as much as 5 to 6 knots. An overhead power cable at the bridge has a clearance of 64 feet.