They really should just call it Lauderdale

Normally we don’t post about food, because we eat way too much of it.  Ok, one of us eats too much of it.  The other one plays lots of pickleball.  But our last night in Miami Beach we had delicious pizza.  That’s it.  Just that the pizza was delicious.  And the late afternoon sun from the dock was pretty cool as well.

We were kind of sorry to leave Sunset Harbour because it’s the swankiest place we’ve been on the Loop.  Hey, they even deliver fuel right to the boat!  None of this hitting bottom on the way to the fuel dock.  (Yup, we’re looking at you Alton.)

Plus, Dana made another pickleball friend.  Jay is the private captain on Escapist, the 88-foot Burger docked across from us.  Ok actually all this finery made us feel a tad insubstantial.   Kind of like Elihu Smails must’ve felt when Al Czervik dropped Seafood’s anchor on The Flying Wasp.*

Anyway, yesterday morning was exciting because we had visitors from the Old Country.  Meaning Arizona.  Tom and Deb Sydenham joined us for the cruise up to Fort Lauderdale.  PSA:  If you’re looking for one of those historical forts with old cannons and civil war history like we’ve mentioned in several prior posts, Fort Lauderdale ain’t one of those forts.  Supposedly there was a small fort near Bahia Mar at some point, but if so almost certainly now it’s a tacky store that sells flimsy t-shirts and overpriced sunglasses.

No matter what Tom or Deb might say, we had a perfect departure.  Nobody forgot to disconnect shore power before starting off the dock.  And even if someone did forget, we caught it early and there wasn’t a fire or anything.  So don’t believe them.

The good news was that Tom and Deb brought bridge luck with them.  We slid in behind Reel Deal and Las Brisas (neither of which are Loopers) and hit every bridge opening on the fly.  The two hours we’d budgeted for diddling around waiting for openings was completely unnecessary.

We went so fast that Dana—lounging on the bow with Deb—couldn’t take pictures of the huge mansions and huge boats lining the ICW.  She did catch the gymnastics exhibition on a sandbar though.**

And the enterprising dude at the same sandbar with a snack bar on pontoons.

Approaching Fort Lauderdale, we started seeing container ships and cruise ships again.  We passed a Chiquita freighter just unloading.  Day-O.  We acknowledge that it probably wasn’t the same boat Harry Belafonte wrote that dumb banana boat song about, but it indeed was a banana boat.  Day-A-A-O.

A small yellow plane pulling a GEICO banner passed overhead.  Do those things work as advertising?  There wasn’t much reason to take a picture.  Anyway, a short time later a small yellow plane pulling a GEICO banner crashed into a condo tower.  True story.  We can’t guarantee that it was the same yellow plane, of course, but we never saw it again.  Thankfully the tragedy wasn’t worse.

As soon as we saw the south basin of Bahia Mar, it was obvious we’re even less significant than we were at the last place.

Not surprisingly they hid us in the poor section, across the tracks back by the fire station and the water taxis.

The Jungle Queen also loaded up tourists within easy earshot.  Reminded us of Jody, way back in Peterborough, Ontario.

Incidentally, there are exactly the same number of jungles around here as there are forts around here.  More south Florida fake news.  What’s not fake are the glorious floating concrete docks.  There should be a law requiring them in all marinas.

Tom and Deb will be here until Monday.  We’ll probably stay until Thursday.

____________

* But the man worthwhile is the man who can smile when his shorts are too tight in the seat.  Do the honors Pookie.

** Brent (of the boat formerly known as Second Wave) gets credit for spotting the pooping dog. We completely missed it.