How do you run aground coming in Port Everglades?

Yes that is the one.

I'll roll out of a channel early, especially in weather to escape the surge and wave confusion. But I'll only do so where I have a lot of water, not just a little. With 6 feet of draft I'll want 20+, no known or charted obstacles, and a clear sight of the wave action to try to locate any anomalies of behavior.

But coming in? Especially my first time in I'll almost always take the full runway to help align, educate myself on what my eyes see versus what the charts are showing, especially when the sun is fading or gone. I recall being confused as hell the first time I came into Ft Pierce at night, a blend of range markers, channel markers, condos, boats, headlights...cacophony of lights and confusion with a short runway.

You want to get real old overnight, make Ponce inlet at night.

I think of inlets a bit like I do roads. There's a paved road marked right in the middle. It's known to be safe and used by recreational and commercial vessels. It's where you expect to see boats entering and exiting. I think of shortcuts outside that marked channel a bit like cars running off the road and through fields and then back on the road.

Another seldom mentioned risk and negative to entering and exiting outside the channel is that you're not where other boats should expect you and you may even force some of them to change course. The reality is if everyone follows the marked path, things will be as simple as possible.

I remember in the PNW the shortcut around Capt Flattery, cutting inside Tatoosh Island. We never took it on our 8 trips or so through. In theory, it's safe. However, many boats have run into trouble there. We just never chose to risk it.

We never make our first entry to an inlet at night and most inlets we still won't enter at night. Port Everglades we will as it's so well marked and so well lit and we've been through it hundreds of times.

...and that familiarity with the inlet helps all of us. But it also gets rough as hell with win out of the easterly direction, and when that tide collides with those rolling swells it can be hell for any sized vessel, just as most any inlet can be. Fortunately you know what you're up against before you get there and have that contingency already in hand so that you can fall off that action as soon as safely possible.

Yes, I may have cut the bouys at the St John's short when it's sloppy, but here is when visibility is still good and of you to other boats. But I still hang in the slop till the next cans past the rocks. Lots of fishing boats around the end of the rocks that may not be seen or see your early turn.

Just remembering the sight of even the locals cutting StAug inlet short gives me the shivers. Not pretty results.
I don't recall ever witnessing a shrimp boat cut any inlet short. If anything happens out of the channel, what little insurance they MAY have would not pay.
That alone could be something to think about.
I wonder if the OP boat will have insurance coverage.

Thinking of the OP boat. I don't do Fbook. Anybody get the boat name or another source?
The Trite web page does not have the story.

Baca

Local charter boat?

Looks like where she started from.

There is an article in a boating magazine that is not welcome on this site that just came out with an article entitled Inlet navigation safety tips and in it thay speak of running all inlets from the sea bouy.

Lived in 29th floor condo over looking PE to the south and to the north where the shoal ran a good ways out from the beach but only marked on the eastern end. Vessels running aground was common occurrence.