Lake Worth Creek

Lake Worth Creek is the part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in northern Palm Beach County, Florida, that runs between Lake Worth near North Palm Beach and the Loxahatchee River near Jupiter Inlet. It was once a winding blackwater creek that flowed north and joined the Loxahatchee River near its mouth. Development changed it over time, most of all when the Intracoastal Waterway from Jacksonville to Miami was finished in 1894. Part of the creek lies in the Loxahatchee River-Lake Worth Creek Aquatic Preserve. The state set up this preserve in 1970, and it covers 1,800 acres in Martin and Palm Beach counties.

Palm Beach County Parks & Recreation runs most of the public ramps. Burt Reynolds Park in Jupiter has six boat ramps that are open 24 hours, and Juno Park has one ramp. Both parks require a boat trailer parking permit. The county also runs the ramps at Bert Winters Park and Palm Beach County Waterway Park. The Town of Jupiter has paddlecraft launches at Sawfish Bay Park and F.I.N.D. River Park. The Village of North Palm Beach's Anchorage Park Marina is for village residents only. State manatee protection rules set the speed limits. In the main Intracoastal channel, from the Indiantown Road (SR 706) bridge south to Lake Worth, the limit is 30 mph from June 1 through September 30 and 25 mph the rest of the year. Slow speed applies all year within 50 feet of the shoreline and in side waters such as Jonathan's Landing, Admiral's Cove and Frenchman's Creek.

In the 1840s, during the Second Seminole War, eighty men from Fort Jupiter traveled up Lake Worth Creek in seventeen canoes. Upstream they reached a set of muck terraces known as the "rapids."