Drawbridges in Seattle, opening time restrictions

[rogerbum]

A friend of mine was given a 30' sailboat by his brother. He's never sailed before and knew I had a boat. So he asked me if I knew how to sail and could help him. I indicated I have never sailed but had another retired friend who had and who had plenty of time to teach him. So bottom line, we set up some times to go sailing.

Our first trip to the was at a -2 tide and we rapidly discovered that the boat slip was only about 2.5 deep at a -2 tide and we weren't going anywhere (keel was in the mud). Our second trip to the boat was this afternoon. We planned better and the tide was +6 or better for the entire afternoon after 3-4PM. Plenty of water and we pushed off the dock at 4:15. The boat is moored just upriver of the South Park bridge in Seattle and it only took us 10 mins to discover that we couldn''t get the bridge to open prior to 5PM. So we tooled around in the river for 45 mins and made our way down to the 1st avenue bridge. We couldn't get that to open prior to 6PM so we tooled around between the bridges for another 45 mins and eventually wandered into Elliott Bay. By the time we got into the bay and had enough space to try our first attempt at sailing, it was about 7:30 and we realized that we could hoist the sails for maybe 20 mins but then would have to put them down and rush back upstream if we wanted to moor before dark.

So, we learned a few things - it's a long way from the marina to the bay; it's slow going and the 2 bridges we need to open will not always open when we want them to. We need to plan better for our next trip. So can anyone tell me where I can get bridge open info and discover in advance when the bridges won't open on our request?

[Robbi]

I am not sure how up to date this information is, but it does give phone numbers for the two bridges on the Duwamish. It sounds like rush hour traffic is the major problem.
http://www.seattle.gov/Transportation/bridgeopenings.htm

Robbi