Hull Cleaning, Dock & Seawall Divers in Boca Raton, FL

Lake Boca Raton is a lagoon on the Intracoastal that opens to the ocean through the Boca Raton Inlet, and the city keeps the inlet open with its own dredge, which anchors just south of the Inlet Bridge and pumps sand onto the beach 500 feet south of the south jetty. NOAA's tide station for the area sits right on the lake. All of Lake Boca Raton and the Intracoastal from the Palmetto Park Road bridge south to the Camino Real bridge is a year-round manatee slow-speed zone, with 50-foot shoreline slow zones along the Intracoastal, the Hillsboro Canal and the El Rio Canal.

Slow water and a lake that swaps with the ocean on every tide add up to fast growth: hard barnacles on the props, shafts and rudders, where bottom paint can't stick, and an algae band at the waterline. Lake Wyman at the north end and the Hillsboro Canal, the county line with Deerfield Beach at the south, bracket the city's Intracoastal frontage. We clean every 30 days.

Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club, gated and founded in 1959, has deep-water canals behind its homes and a private marina with a dockmaster for boats up to 130 feet. Boca Harbour, about 325 homes on the Intracoastal and canals off Federal Highway, is the other big private-dock neighborhood. The Boca Raton resort's marina has 30 slips on the lake and the Intracoastal for boats up to 150 feet. Trailer boats go in at Silver Palm Park on West Palmetto Park Road, which has two ramps and access to the lake, the inlet and the ocean (permit required, no personal watercraft). ZIP codes 33431, 33432 and 33487 cover the waterfront.

Boca Raton permits seawalls and docks under its marine structures code (Chapter 22) and the city's engineering design standards, and permit plans have to show the top-of-cap elevation; we have not confirmed a minimum elevation for the city, so we don't quote one. What we do is clean the wall, inspect it, document its condition ($250 for a home, $350 for a multi-family or commercial property, lender paperwork included) and fill cracks all the way through with custom cement tubes, quoted free in person.

Call 561-666-3716 or send the form with the boat's length, where it lives (Royal Palm, Boca Harbour, Lake Boca, the resort marina or the Intracoastal) and whether the hull is painted. Royal Palm is gated, so the divers call ahead and text you right before they arrive. Nobody needs to be home; the report and photos follow each visit.