High Tide and High Yachting

In West Palm Beach, the dividing line between the mainland and the island of Palm Beach is marked by three drawbridges and a great deal of unspoken class tension. For the landlocked commuters who travel back and forth across the Intracoastal Waterway, the bridges are unpredictable gatekeepers. When the sirens wail and the heavy striped gates descend, traffic grinds to a halt on both sides, transforming the palm-fringed causeways into parking lots. The delay is rarely due to commercial shipping; more often, it is for the passage of a multi-million-dollar mega-yacht, its towering flybridge requiring the massive concrete spans to lift toward the blue sky like giant, gray wings.

From his stationary sedan, Nicholas Drake, an attorney who makes the daily crossing to his office on Royal Palm Way, watches the yacht glide through the gap. The boat, a sleek vessel with a home port in George Town and a crew in matching blue polo shirts, moves with a slow, indifferent majesty. On the bridge deck, guests in sunglasses sip white wine, oblivious to the seventy-car backup they have caused on the mainland. Drake feels a familiar, low-grade irritation, a sentiment shared by the delivery drivers, landscape contractors, and housekeepers who make up the island's essential morning migration.

The bridge tenders, isolated in their glass booths above the water, occupy a position of absolute, if temporary, authority. They operate on a strict schedule mandated by the Coast Guard, balancing the needs of maritime commerce against the complaints of local politicians. As the yacht clears the span and the bridge begins its slow, heavy descent, the engines on the causeway roar back to life in a collective growl of frustration. For Drake and his fellow motorists, the daily delay is simply the cost of doing business in a paradise where the right of way is always determined by draft and displacement.