"To keep us in business, I have been traveling to the Boca Inlet, and giving my customers an extra hour, which costs fuel and time," Capt. Harold Heuff told the Hillsboro Inlet District board in May. Heuff owns the Hillsboro Inlet Fishing Center. He was describing a detour to the Boca Raton Inlet, about six miles north, which he was making because the inlet at his own front door had become "almost impassable at certain tides."
For anyone in Lighthouse Point who keeps a boat behind the house, that detour sums up 2026. Canal frontage only matters as much as the route from the canal to open water, and for this city that route ends at one inlet. All year, how deep that inlet runs has depended less on how hard the dredge crew works and more on how many calm days the ocean allows them.
The sand that matters sits outside the rocks
In April, TAPinto Pompano reported that shoaling in the inlet's ocean channel had reached a critical point. Longtime captains called it the hardest conditions they had seen in 40 to 50 years, and the buildup was reducing a channel that usually runs deeper than 10 feet to much shallower levels. Most observers blamed rough weather and wave patterns that pushed unusually large volumes of sand into the channel.
The detail that explains the rest of the year came out at the district's May meeting. Capt. Woodworth "Woody" Draughon III runs day-to-day dredging for the district. He explained that most of the crew's work had been in the calm water behind the inlet's rock jetties. Past the jetties, where the sand keeps piling up, wind and waves can quickly make it unsafe to run the district's barge-like cutter-suction dredge.
So the problem is less how much sand the crew can move than when the crew can safely reach it. Draughon described a stretch in early May when the sea finally settled. "We were able to go out for just a couple of days when the weather was good, and we worked for twelve hours. That's equivalent to 5,400 cubic yards removed from the outer channel." He estimated the rest of the shoal could be made passable in about a week, but only with equally good weather. He was aiming for at least 10 feet. That is short of the 14 feet he called the preferred depth for large boats.
Capt. Tom Oberrender of Killin' Time Charters told the board, "In 35 years, this is the worst I've ever seen it."
A year of sand, set against the last one
The district's own numbers show a crew working at a much faster pace than in 2025.
| Period | Volume reported | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All of 2025 | 150,525 cubic yards dredged | District chair Denise Bryan, May 2026 meeting |
| January through April 2026 | 83,500 cubic yards dredged | District chair Denise Bryan, May 2026 meeting |
| January through June 2026 | 110,250 cubic yards bypassed | District dredging table updated July 1, 2026 |
| Two calm days in early May 2026 | 5,400 cubic yards from the outer channel in twelve hours | Capt. Woody Draughon |
By the end of April, the crew had already moved more than half of 2025's full-year total. By the end of June, the bypass figure stood at about 73 percent of last year's total. The catch is that the July table counts all sand bypassed and doesn't say how much came from the outer ocean channel, which is where boaters have been running into trouble. A record pace behind the jetties and a passable channel past them can both be true at the same time, and so far this year they have been.
No public report since May confirms that the outer channel was fully cleared or gives a verified depth for it. TAPinto's May 21 article is the latest news coverage of the shoaling, and the district's monthly agendas since then list inlet status reports without publishing the figures.
The machine doing the work dates to 2007
All of this is being done by a dredge that is nearly two decades old. The district's 2025 request for proposals describes the existing vessel as an Ellicott "Severn VI" purchased in 2007. A 2019 district operations summary describes it as an Ellicott Dragon Series 1070, bought for $1.8 million and put into service in May 2008. The upkeep has added up. New Pelican reported in November 2023 that a costly dredge overhaul was among the district's rising expenses, with repairs costing $540,000, partially reimbursed.
A replacement is on the way. The district's November 17, 2025 agenda listed the award of a new-dredge contract to Ellicott Dredges, LLC, and a December 1, 2025 special meeting listed approval of that contract. The RFP calls for a cutter-suction dredge with a 14-inch suction and 12-inch discharge. It required bidders to quote a firm fixed fee and an expected delivery period.
The final price and delivery date have not been made public. Every regular agenda from June through September 28, 2026, has included an update on construction of the new Ellicott dredge, so the project is moving, but the agendas don't say how far along it is. Until it arrives, the 2007 machine and the weather together set the pace.
The inlet is a local bill
Here is the part many waterfront owners may not realize: they help pay for that dredge. The Hillsboro Inlet District is a special taxing district, and most of its revenue comes from property taxes on real estate inside its boundary. The district map shows the boundary covering parts of seven communities. Lighthouse Point accounts for about 1.2 miles, alongside Deerfield Beach, Hillsboro Beach, Pompano Beach, Sea Ranch Lakes, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and Oakland Park.
The rate the district currently posts is 0.1024 mills. That works out to $10.24 per $100,000 of taxable value, before exemptions and separate from every other taxing authority on the bill. The board held public hearings on the FY2026-27 millage and budget on September 14 and September 28, 2026. As of early October, the adopted rate has not been posted, so this year's figure is still unconfirmed.
The sand doesn't go to waste. The district describes its work as sand bypassing: it dredges the sand that drifts south and builds up at the inlet, then pumps it onto the north end of Pompano Beach, just south of the south jetty. The same work that keeps the channel open also keeps sand on the beach next door.
Where to look before the next run offshore
Since the channel changes with every swell, the most useful information is whatever was published most recently. Three public sources are worth checking.
- The district's depth chart. The Hillsboro Inlet District depth chart shows soundings taken September 24, 2026. The district states that the chart is not to scale and not for navigation, and adds its own cautions: "This is a hazardous inlet, local knowledge is required." Pass at idle speed. The current at the bridge can run six knots, and boats should give way to vessels moving with the current. Ebb currents tend to push boats onto the south reef, and flood currents push them off it. Moving sand reduces depth, and wave troughs hold less water than a flat calm.
- Coast Guard safety bulletins. On September 29, 2026, the Coast Guard reported Hillsboro Inlet Entrance Daybeacon 5 destroyed, with partial wreckage above the waterline, and said a temporary aid had been set in 11 feet of water. The bulletin is scheduled to cancel on October 13. An earlier alert in May had reported the same daybeacon missing.
- District meeting agendas. Regular meetings are held in the evening at 6:30, usually on a Monday, though the July 21 meeting fell on a Tuesday, and each agenda includes an inlet status report and an update on the new dredge. The September 28 agenda is the most recent.
TAPinto Pompano's May report remains the most detailed public account of the shoaling, including what the district's crew and the charter captains said firsthand. Capt. Chris Mills of Ringmaster Charters added a warning for boaters crossing the shallow channel: yield to bigger boats.
Bigger boats are also part of the neighborhood's near future. The Lighthouse Point Yacht Club's clubhouse came down in September to make way for a new two-story club, and its 78-slip marina is staying as it is. Every one of those slips, and every private dock along the city's canals, depends on how much water the district can keep in a channel it can only work on calm days.
If you own on the water in Lighthouse Point, or you're weighing a home where the dock matters as much as the house, the team at Bernal & Hudson can talk through what reaching the ocean looks like from a specific address, including how far it is to the inlet and the district that keeps it open. Get access to our private listings and we'll start with the property's water access.
