Water Taxi ride!

Yesterday we took a water taxi ride through the canals of Ft Lauderdale. There are 165 miles of navigable canals within the City limits. The canals and houses were built in the 1950’s - 60’s. The tour guide said the average house on a canal sold for $35 - $45,000 back then.

Pictured above is the Stranahan House, the first house built in Ft Lauderdale in 1901. It sits on the New River, and acted as the home and office for Frank Stranahan and his trading post and ferry crossing, which connected the towns of Lantana and North Miami.

We have noticed numerous large boats being towed on the river. We don’t know if it is because they won’t run, and are being towed to a marina, if the Captain is not available and the owner wants the boat moved, or if it is just easier to tow them than pilot them through this skinny body of water. In any event, it is interesting watching as one tow boat pulls from the front, and another tow boat in the rear, being dragged backwards, powers up and swings the stern thru the corners.

Below are some of the houses we saw along the New River. There is everything from opulent mansions, to some of the original 1950’s homes which remain untouched. 

This home is the only home which is built over the water. We were told this was due to a “surveyors error”. It was originally built for Joe Namath, and was once named as the Playboy Bachelor Pad of the Year! It now looks to be the worse for wear and neglected.

Where three or four 1950’s ramblers once stood, there are now mansions owned by some of the wealthiest people in America. Just the property taxes alone can run $50,000 - PER MONTH!

I could go on and on with photos of these mansions. They just don’t end! The wealth here is amazing! The stories of who the owners are / were, who got what in the divorce settlement, and the homes built as 16th Birthday presents for the kids were very interesting. Some of the original homes remain, and also have interesting stories as to who built them.

One street the Taxi drivers refer to as “Party Avenue”. One home is owned by the Seagrams family, the next by a plastic surgeon, one by Sunny and Cher, and one by the guy that invented Alka Seltzer.

The story goes that you stop at the surgeons to get made over, pick up some drinks at the Seagrams, be entertained by Sunny & Cher, and grab some Alka Seltzer on the way home!

And of course there are the boats! Some of the most magnificent yachts I have ever seen! I’ll show you a few. 

This is a newer yacht made to look old. It is owned by Johnny Depp. He was just pulling out, headed for his private island in the Caribbean. 

It is rumored that the OHANA was only 27’ long when it first pulled into Lauderdale. However, the owner invented a little blue pill called Viagra. It seems to have done the trick!

I bet Pats nephew Brad and sister Judy know who owns this boat!

Whats that??? You’re not sure? I’ll give you a little hint. Take a look at the name below. 

You got it!  Mustang Sally is owned by Rousch Racing!

 This is one of the largest we saw, and I think one of the prettiest. 

The side of this boat opens so the 40' dinghy can easily be launched.  We were told that when the owner named this yacht, he wanted his initials to be prominent in the name. The Seven Seas starts and ends with an S, for Stephen Spielberg.

And  for a perfect end to a perfect day, Liz came to pick us up, and take us to dinner at Roccos Tacos on the “Happenin” street of Las Olas. Liz is the daughter of Pat’s good friends Linda and Dale. She lives in Ft Lauderdale with her husband, and is pursuing her PHD in Marine Biology. She fascinated us talking about her research project of studying and trying to re establish Staghorn Coral.

She has logged over 600 dives for her research, in places from Ft Lauderdale, to Long Key, and the Dry Tortugas. She and her team are studying why this coral has been dying off, and are attempting to re-establish reefs with new growth.  We wish you much success Liz!

Whew!  That was a long, fun filled day. Today Marc & I are going to attend what is said to be the worlds largest boaters flea market! An acquaintance of mine I met on the Cruisers Yacht Owners forum on the internet lives here in Ft Lauderdale, and has an identical boat to ours! What a coincidence! He is picking us up, and taking us there. I’ll fill you in later on what we see!

Bye for now

Captn Ken

Dinner on the Parrot!

When we left John Pennekamp, the 20 BUCK$ and Marcs Ark were headed for a tie up in a State Park at Bocha Chita. When we got there, we found it to be a small lagoon with concrete walls around it. It was designed to hold about 20 boats, and there were 40 there. Just a little crowded. However, being the good mariners we are, we had an alternative plan. We headed to an anchorage at No Name Harbor on the bottom end of Key Biscayne, and within view of downtown Miami.

Lets see now - this was Sunday afternoon, a beautiful day, within a few miles of Miami. WHAT WERE WE THINKING!!! Of course, that was packed also.

Admiral Pat took a quick look at the Waterway Guide, and found a marina not far away.

We ended up at Crandon Park Marina. The picture below is a view from the docks, looking at downtown Miami. 

While walking the docks, I noticed our friends Mark & Sue must have upgraded boats and moved to Miami! Or was that “Cruise” Control they have!

The next day we took a walk across the bridge to the beach, had a lemonade, and decided we were ready for a night on the town.

Remember the Parrot we were given at our send off party?? It was stuffed with $20 bills! As we had decided to use this for a special evening, we asked the marina manager where to go for a nice dinner, and she recommended the Rusty Pelican.  She also offered to give us a ride there when she got off work at 5:00. 

And what a nice restaurant it was! It had just undergone a major remodel, and the Chef had developed a wonderful menu.

I have never seen this extensive of a wine selection - except for Dave and Susies wine collection at Camp David on the St Croix.   

We enjoyed a very nice dinner, and a beautiful sunset.

Thank You so much to our Red Wing friends!

This morning we headed thru Miami, and up the intracoastal to Ft Lauderdale. The houses and scenery were nothing short of spectacular!

We headed a few miles up the New River, into the heart of Ft Lauderdale, and were able to get a mooring on the river wall. What a spectacular place! You just can’t believe the yachts that cruise thru here!

Hmmmmm - I wonder what kind of crystal they have aboard?

And it looks like our friends Kris & Al also upgraded boats, but kept the name “Pegasus”!

Tomorrow we are taking a water taxi ride on the New River to see the sites, and on Saturday we will be in West Palm Beach, to attend a Minn. Twins game, thanks to tickets from Linda & Jerry!

This trip just keeps getting better and better! We are at the point that we don’t want it to ever end!

Captn Ken

Good-bye Marathon!

This gentle giant stopped by our boat the night before we left Marathon.  They love fresh water and our neighbor had hung up his hose after bathing his dog and it was dripping.  He rolled over on his back and opened his mouth and enjoyed his “nectar of the Gods”.

We were up early enough to see the sunrise on Friday!  The plan was to leave at 8 a.m. with Marcs Ark.  We said good-bye to our new friends in Marathon and made our way out of the channel to the ICW on the west side of the Keys!  With the high winds that we had been having we were glad to see that the seas were relatively calm!

It was a beautiful day!  As we traveled up the ICW, the Florida everglades were off our port and the Keys were off our starboard.  We tied up to a mooring ball off of Shell Key to spend the night.  We jumped in the dinghies and went out exploring.

At first I thought this was an eagle but turns out it was an Osprey, equally as big and majestic. 

We watched the sunset from the top of Marcs Ark and ended another great day!

Today we headed up the ICW to anchor in Tarpon Basin and snorkel at John Pennekamp State Park.  The picture is Cowpen’s Cut.  The waters we traveled today are said to be some of the shallowest we will encounter.  It is a good thing too as it is very nerve racking to see < 5’ on the depth finder when we draft 3’.  That doesn’t leave much room for error!  Stay in the channel and oh by the way, don’t forget to dodge the crab pots!  We made it into the anchorage and dropped the dinghies and headed for shore.  Marc and Michele joined us for lunch but they didn’t come snorkeling with us. 

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is the first undersea park in the U.S.  It was created to protect and preserve a portion of the only living coral reef in the continental United States.  It is named for one of the early proponents of the preservation of its reef, John D. Pennekamp.  Pennekamp was a Miami newspaper editor who also helped establish Everglades National Park.  

We ended up arriving at the reef at low tide which meant that some of the reef was out of the water.  Still we saw lots of sea life and had a great time!

Here are shots of a FL lobster, a rainbow parrot fish and coral heads. 

We were visiting with a group of five gals on the boat with us.  They are part of a group of 9, most of them from Atlanta, that were on vacation together.  Reminds me of my trips with my wonderful dive buddies.  Anyway, they were excited to hear about our trip and I promised I would make them famous on our blog.  Here are the “housewives of Atlanta” and friends! 

We took a taxi back to the dinghy dock and headed back to 20BUCK$ that was patiently waiting at anchor for us.  It has been a long day.  The captain has already crawled into bed! 

Tomorrow we are heading up to Boca Chita Key for more new adventures.

Time for me to say good night!  Pat

The wind just keeps on blowing!!!!

Looking at the picture of the moon above over a beautiful sky doesn’t look like the wind is howling but looks can be deceiving!  The plan was to leave Marathon on Monday with Marcs Ark and begin our trek up the east coast of FL.  The best laid plans.........!  We began watching the weather and the multiple internet sites that predict wind velocity and wave heights hoping to find one of the four that we monitor that would indicate we were safe to cast off on Monday morning!  It was not to be!  The winds began to blow on Sunday noon as predicted and by Sunday night the winds were blowing at 20 - 25 mph!   The winds continued on Monday and today is Tuesday and they are blowing even harder.  We made the decision on Sunday night to remain tied at the dock until Thursday when we are hoping the winds calm down!  I had provisioned the boat and done the laundry in anticipation of our departure, a process I will need to repeat before we leave!   Making the most of our extra days in Marathon, we have tried out a couple new restaurants, practiced conch blowing at sunset and gone for long walks!

We started yesterday with breakfast at the Seven Mile Grille with Marc and Michele!   Just like all the other restaurants on Marathon, the food is great the decor I can only describe as “Keysie”!  After breakfast we walked across the street to the Nautical Gift shop to purchase a Pelican Lamp for the boat that Ken and I had seen the day before!   Love those pelicans and now I can take them with me!

Last night we took the dinghy out to watch another gorgeous sunset and practice our conch blowing!    The Captain needs to practice some more to perfect his blow!  It is good he has so many other skills as he will never earn a living blowing the conch at sunset!  Can’t say that I would either but I can at least make the conch sound!  We sure had a good belly laugh at each other and saw again a beautiful sunset!

This morning we walked out to the Seven Mile Bridge to see what the seas were like with winds blowing this hard!  It gave us an idea of what we would be traveling in if we leave with winds higher than we like!  Here Ken is looking through binoculars at the water seeing how high the waves are!  It doesn’t look too bad right here at the bridge and the wave heights looked to be only a foot from what we could see but trying to battle the wind and keep the 20BUCK$ going straight when it was all we could do to walk against the wind is keeping us in the marina!

We continued our walk and the pictures above are typical of walking in Marathon!  You will notice we found a bedroll in the mangroves and further down the path was the pillow that must go with it!   The 8 a.m. beer drinking locals were not in their normal spot under the tree so I couldn’t get their picture!  The flowers are beautiful, the water is every color of blue and green you can imagine and the local eaterys are a hoot!  Only in the Keys!

We will keep you posted on our departure day.  Right now we are shooting for Thursday but looking at the weather sites Thursday may not be an option either!  Winds are not predicted to drop until the weekend!  In the meantime we are listening to the howl of the wind safely tied to the dock!  Pat

Two more days!

Only two more days in Marathon, then we head north! Not that we want to, but it’s time to continue.

As Pat said, “Keys Disease” has set in. Everything here is so laid back that it’s hard to think about moving along. Now I know why so many boats here have a years worth of barnacles growing on them!

This has been an absolutely INCREDIBLE stop! The folks at Burdines, and the boaters in the marina have been wonderful. Everyone has been helpful in exchanging information about the trip, and we sure were not at a loss for things to do! 

Exploring the canals in the dinghy, picnic lunches at the beach, and just plain being lazy!

That’s what Keys Disease is all about!

Dinner with good friends is always a plus! Donna and Greg at the end of the table, on the Lady In Red, left yesterday. They live in North Carolina, and spent quite a bit of time with us and the charts for that area.

Marc and Michele from Marks Ark are leaving on Monday, a day after us, and hopefully will catch us at an anchorage about 45 miles up at Ligunvitae Key. Or we might just stay another day and wait for them. 

And of course we went out again last night for another sunset.

Marc & Michele picked up a Conch for Pat when they were in Key West again last week with their kids. She said she had to have one for our last Anchor Out back home the end of September at our favorite anchorage below Lock 3.

And it sure didn’t take long for her to master it! 

That's all for now! Have to rest up before dinner!

Captn Ken