Sid Cassidy Open Water Weekend - Sunday Salt Water Events

February brings clear Atlantic waters to the sandy shoreline of Boca Raton, where open water swimmers gather for morning ocean challenges honoring Sid Cassidy. The Sid Cassidy Open Water Weekend - Sunday Salt Water Events brings open water racers to the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida, celebrating one of the sport's greatest advocates with a full roster of coastal distances. The gathering was inaugurated in February 2026, introducing American swimmers to novel competitive formats including the first 3K Knockout race ever held in the United States. The Sunday open water races unfold directly in the Atlantic surf along Coral Cove County Park, taking advantage of the open sea and coastal swell.

Swimmers kicking out into the salt water face a genuine ocean course where reading the waves and keeping an eye on the shore markers make all the difference. The morning schedule launches with the 5 Kilometer Challenge, taking swimmers on a long offshore test that runs through the early morning hours. Those looking for a shorter sea trial follow in the One Kilometer Encounter, setting out into the ocean swells once the long-distance packs are well underway. Swimmers line up on the hard-packed sand, gauging the break of the surf before launching into the Atlantic chop. The morning wraps up with the 500 Meter Splash, an ocean sprint restricted to junior participants aged fourteen and under that lets young swimmers test their surf skills in a supervised inshore course.

February sea, Sid Cassidy and the 3K Knockout format

Sea temperature at Boca Raton in February averages 22°C (71.6°F), with a range from 20.2°C (68 °F) to 23.8°C (75 °F), according to seatemperature.org. The 5 Kilometer Challenge at the Sid Cassidy Open Water Weekend carries both Masters and USA Swimming sanctions. Sid Cassidy, whose name the weekend carries, was the national team's head coach of open water swimming from 1991 to 1996. Known as "Coach Sid", Cassidy has been head swim coach at St. Andrew's in Boca Raton for almost two decades, according to WPTV. The 3km knockout sprint is a tournament-style race made of two 1500m heats, one 1000m sprint and a final 500m sprint, and the last 500m determines the winner. World Aquatics notes that with roughly 10 minutes between swims in the knockout format, recovery is as important as speed.

Hillsboro Inlet Light and the edge of the Florida Reef

Just eleven kilometres down the coast from the race area, the maritime horizon is anchored by the Hillsboro Inlet Light, which marks the exact northern boundary of the Florida Reef. The lighthouse itself is an imposing piece of offshore engineering, consisting of an octagonal iron pyramidal tower standing 132 feet tall. Built without any welds, the entire metal skeleton is held together by structural bolts that have withstood ocean salt and coastal gales. Inside the lantern room, the rotating lens originally rested on a reservoir of liquid mercury to achieve frictionless movement, requiring filtering every ten years to strip away accumulated sea salt. That massive optic produces a beam with a range of twenty-eight nautical miles across the open Atlantic.

The durability of the iron tower was proven during the catastrophic 1926 Miami hurricane, when the beacon survived howling squalls even as twenty feet of sand were eroded from beneath its foundations. The surrounding waters carried strategic significance during wartime as well; in 1943, the lighthouse beach patrol spotted a German U-boat lurking just offshore, which was reportedly sunk in the vicinity, though no wreck has ever been documented.

Deerfield Beach Island and the Atlantic shipwrecks offshore

Directly between Lake Boca and Hillsboro Inlet lies Deerfield Beach Island, a barrier island stretching approximately five and a half miles along the open ocean. Near the center of Deerfield Beach Island, the Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier juts straight out into the surf. About eleven kilometres away from the race area rests the steamship SS Inchulva, which foundered in high surf during a 1903 hurricane with the loss of nine crew members. The ship settled just 140 meters offshore, resting in shallow water where it has become a celebrated diving and snorkeling destination commemorated by a historical marker on the seaside multi-use path. The Bud Bar reef was formed by the scuttling of the 52-meter German freighter MS Havel, sent to the sea bottom at a depth of 29 meters on July 16, 1987. Renamed after a corporate donation helped finance its placement, the submerged freighter transforms the wreck into an underwater oasis.

From Everglades runoff to Wakodahatchee Wetlands and Boca lagoon

Long before sailors mapped the area, the region was inhabited by the Glades culture, hunter-gatherers who migrated seasonally along the lagoons to harvest rich beds of shellfish. Modern settlement along these shores began in 1895 when Captain Thomas Moore Rickards built a driftwood house on the east bank of the East Coast Canal, living entirely off the coastal waterway. In those early days, the natural Hillsboro River served as a vital drainage outlet, carrying freshwater runoff from cypress swamps and the eastern Everglades through the Atlantic Coastal Ridge out to sea. That original hydrology evolved into the modern Hillsboro Canal, which originates at Lake Okeechobee's S-2 structure and flows past the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, offering ten navigable miles for recreational boating.

The Wakodahatchee Wetlands are located about fifteen kilometres from the race venue. Built on fifty acres of former utility land, the site receives two million gallons of treated water daily, which is naturally purified by beds of marsh plants and algae before returning to the surface supply. A three-quarter-mile boardwalk winds through open ponds, emergent marshes, and shallow shelves where birders spot more than 150 avian species along the Great Florida Birding Trail.

The Boca Raton oceanfront: Red Reef Park and Mizner architecture

Back along the oceanfront, Boca Raton's Atlantic coast is defined by stretches of pristine white sand and clear blue water. At Red Reef Park, swimmers and snorkelers can wade straight from the sand to explore an underwater trail composed of twenty artificial reef structures teeming with marine life. Just up the beach, Spanish River Park preserves a more natural coastal landscape centered on an inland lagoon and bird observation grounds. Nearby, the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center features a boardwalk trail and an observation tower set within twenty acres of protected barrier island hammock. The 1926 Cloister Inn—now The Boca Raton Resort—fronts both the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Boca along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Its iconic pink tower, added in 1969, stands watch over a 32-slip marina and connects to a private half-mile stretch of golden beach. That oceanfront has welcomed bathers for generations, starting with the Palmetto Park Pavilion in 1925, a wooden ballroom and restaurant destroyed by a hurricane, and continuing through the cabana clubs built along the breakers. The resort's modern beach club was constructed in 1980 on the oceanfront site architect Addison Mizner originally chose for his grand hotel. After finishing the ocean races, resting on the soft white sands as the Atlantic surf washes the shore is the quintessential South Florida open water experience.