Fort Lauderdale Pictures/ cruise week of Nov 12-19

Beach Ocean side a block from the Hall of Fame Marina. Facing the street from the same spot. You could get the number 40 bus and go to the Galleria Mall and get nearly anything you needed. If you transferred to the number 36 you could go to Home Depot, the Publixs grocery, Wells Fargo, Book store, Nappa for radiator parts, it is all here. The all day bus pass for $4 was great.

Charles thought it would be a good idea for us to rent a car to get things before we left town. So The Newest West Marine, Bed Bath and Beyond, JoAnn Fabrics, Kohl's were on the list.,

A few days after we arrived our friend Russ and Mary from EYC arrived at Bahia Mar marina which was next door and where I rented the car from Hertz. So we went to socialized a little after the cruise when they arrrived in town. Our thoughts were we both jumped off at the same time but they headed for Lucaya instead of the West End.

THE CRUISE on the CRUISE

This is the Holland America ship we took for the National Review Cruise. For those interested the statistics include : Decks 11, guests 2,104, crew 800, elevators 14, length 936 ft, width 105.8 ft, Draft 26 ft, Built 2008, props Azipods, Diesel 6 engines, Maz speed 23.9 knots, goss tonnage 86,000, bow thrusters :3 units, 3400 bhp with a cute bull nose in front. The National Review participants were about 550 people.

Our lectures were in the theater area mostly which is why we had 8 pm late seating for dinner so other guests could see the show. We were fortunate enough to be assigned seating with speakers for three evenings, and our dinner partners always changed by National Review assignment so we met lots of very interesting people.


The take home was one couple- Emily and Bill who are from Seattle. We may have Bill as a passenger on Ariel at some point. We were very blessed to also meet Betsy and Russ who live in St Cloud MN but also have a boat at Yankee Point Marina and I believe live at a second house in the RRYC area, so we have potential new members. Small world. Both couples joined us after the cruise to see Ariel. We will probably do another cruise like this again. It was fun.

The ports we saw ( which Charles did not even want to get disembark for- but we did) included: Grand Turk *, San Juan *, St Thomas *, and Half Moon Cay. ( we went to those with stars on Ariel in a sedate cruiser style location with a few less tourist and fanfare. We did not do any side trips as the talks were our focus.

View from deck 11 (Lido) arriving in Grand Turk.

NR Cruise

I have been asked to report on the cruise. Holland America from Port Everglades to grand Turk to San Juan to St Thomas to Half Moon Cay back to Port Everglades. Well run ship with very good food. the purpose of the cruise was a series of seminars put on by by National Reviw Magazine. There were sessions every morning afternoon and some evenings and you get to eat with some of the speakers in the evenings. We ate on separate occasions with Tony Blankley (used to be Newt Gingrich's press secretary, Deroy Murdock (a conservative ecomomic commentator) and John Yoo (the lawyer in the Bush administration who wrote the memos justifying enhanced interrogation methods on selected terrorists). At every session in which he participated Yoo was introduced as a "war criminal". The cruise was well worth it and both enjoyable and very informative. They do it every year and some of the partcipants had been to over 12 of them. I recommend it for anyone interested in politics and who prefers a more conservative approach to our governance.

We left Port Everglades on Ariel on Wenesday evening at 9:00 PM and arrived at Old Bahama Bay Marina West End on Grand Bahama Island at 9:00 AM Thursday. A pretty uneventful trip (motoring) against an east wind across the Gulf Stream. Bumpy but not nearly as bumpy as I expected. We managed to pick the only weather window for a long time and when we arrived the marina was empty. After we got in two catamarans and four monohulls arrived all from Lake Worth Inlet (a much shorter trip). No one has arrived so far today and I don't expect anyone, the wind is 15-25 knots out of the North East and is expected to stay there for three more days at least.

The marina is very pleasant - clearing in was easy and the people are very friendly. Tonight we will have our Thanksgiving dinner at the Bonefish Grill. Tomorrow if the weather looks good enough we are off to Great Sale Cay and then to Rosie's Place on Grand Cay - at least that is the plan but this is the Bahamas and plans can change. I am sure Sue will have more to say but I hope everyone who reads this (both of you) have a great Thanksgiving, wherever you are.

Nov 8- ICW 1064- Fort Lauderdale

We are finally here. We are docked at the Hall of Fame Marina which is next door to the BahiaMar marina complex where the Fort Lauderdale Boat show was held. MANY MEGA YACHTS. We have a slip in a fortunately quiet area. The ICW is to one side.. relatively far away and the main highway is a good dock walk away on the other side. In front a few dozen Mega Yachts across the fairway. You can get awoken by the sound of bow thrusters.

There is the International Hall of Fame swimming pool where lap lines are set up with a huge clock and from time to time, groups come through to practice swim meet stuff. They must have had an Olympic swim met here once.. huge place. http://www.ishof.org/about/

Charles did some walking this morning and found a high rise walkway to the beach only a block away. We can also dodge traffic on Sunrise Blvd the one block if we want. Coconuts restaurant has out of this world coconut shrimp for lunch.

We went to West Marine this afternoon. There are two in town and the part we ordered was at the southern one. We have been told ( for St Augustine store) that West Marine is opening a mega store with the largest square footage store in the system on Friday of this week. We may have to delay checking it out.

We will do some brite work tomorrow and general clean up with our goodies from West Marine.

Nov 7th ICW 1018- West Palm Beach

We left the marina with ominous clouds and spitting rain to charge for more miles on the ICW. Outside talk was of 20 foot seas with storm conditions. That was a no brainer. We made our way to just past Peanut Island near a huge cruise ship turning basin with a view of the exit out to sea. We were on the hook. Chill out.

In the morning it was "do we stay another day or take off.?" Weather reports were still not impressive and we knew that the next stop was Fort Lauderdale. BUT there were 21 bridges to go through all requiring a tender to open them in their time schedule.

We decided to go for it.

Many nice homes along the ICW in Palm Beach.

You wonder where everyone from NYC goes when they come to Florida?

It must be here in high rise city..

As we leave one area in Palm Beach to another our AIS is going crazy the closer we get to Ft Lauderdale. The reason is there are many more mega yachts with their electronics still on broadcasting themselves as (docked) dangerous targets. It does not stop which only makes navigating more challenging for Charles. Turning off the AIS buzzing and keeping the boat lined up for a bridge can be difficult. He came through wonderfully.

This is the view from the bridge. Wall to wall mega yachts.

This is the view from the Nav Pod - so many targets they super impose on one another. Each triangle is a mega yacht. They are pretty dense here!

More on Manatees- Sunday Nov 6th Fort Pierce

Sunday was nice. We went to the First United Methodist church on Orange street not too far from the marina. Linda and Steve were very hospitable and many of the congregation had lunch in fellowship hall. They told us that the church had been hit by three hurricanes in the recent past and had rebuilt several times. How is that for a building fund? Just keep rebuilding what you have.

Steve said the city marina docks were floating docks at one time, but a hurricane came through and changed all that. They are now regular driven pile docks. The tidal change is not that great and they work better through the bad weather. There were some piles that had scars from being warn away in storms. We had the usual reversing current in our slip. At times an extra fender was needed to protect Ariel from trying to shave the mid ship piling on port. Then you could barely get on the boat from the large gap on that side.







Laundry occupied the afternoon and a trip to the Manatee Observation and Education Center.

http://www.manateecenter.com/



This is from a magazine picture they are too fast to get a good shot. Manatees are similar to hippos without tusks in my opinion. They are huge being around ten feet long and weighing between 800 to 1200 pounds. They favor warm water and are found near power plant warm water deposits. As vegetarians they eat about 100 pounds of sea grasses a day. The center was just across from the marina.




The center stressed that exotic creatures have been introduced in Florida's environment with some detrimental effects. This is a lionfish which was native to the Indo-Pacific area and probably introduced by the aquamarine trade for aquarium use. The theory is that they got out to our waterways probably from hurricane Andrew in 1992 through a broken aquarium. Without natural preditors they have become over populated. Records show they have quickly migrated in three years from Florida to North Carolina and have even been seen in New England contrary to being though of as a warm water fish. They have a wide habitat range living between shallow waters and 575 foot depths. They reproduce quickly and abundantly. Being a voracious predator the effect is to decrease juvenile grouper, spiny lobsters, parrot fish, wrasses and other ecologically and economically important species.

There are 25 % of Florida's environment contaminated by exotic fish and animals from all over the world upsetting the eco system.
********


In the parking lot I saw this guy with fish flapping in his laundry basket and I asked if I could take a picture of him. He then demonstrated how using a casting net he caught several fish in two minutes. He just flung the net in the water dockside and drew up the string and got three more fish for his collection.

Manatee

I have been looking for Manatee but so far no luck. Today that changed. We went to the hardware store ( nice Ace on Orange ave) and there was this cute statue of a manatee.

"Manatee at work" the sign says.

After lunch walking around the waterfront we saw our first manatee and I believe there were actually three together. Only one surfaced at a time. You can tell something is different because their tails are wide and come to a point. Whereas dolphins have split tails. They stay to the surface and are slower diving back down but I still have not been able to get a picture. Dolphins are even faster evading the camera.

This downtown area apparently has a huge federal court building and other circuit court buildings with many law offices nearby. Lady justice was above one such office.

Fort Pierce ICW 965- Nov 5

Sun rise with a half rainbow look. 20 % chance of rain today.

We did an early departure 7:30 am and short run from Vero Beach because we wanted to get the Fort Pierce to see what was on offer at their Saturday farmers market. We were well served. It was interesting seeing the maybe 100 vendors of all sorts from a guy who carves using just a chain saw and sand paper-- but beautiful work ;to every thing you would expect at this gathering. Jewlery, tee shirts, veggies, home grown plants, soaps etc. were for sale. There were two bands playing in their gazebos. One on the side closest to the street's circle did great jazz. They were retired guys having fun. The other group was more varied but nice also at the other end by the food court.

For lunch we feasted on Italian sausage (Charles) and chicken Fajita(Sue) and lemonaide all fresh cooked on the spot. Mmm. Lunch was cheap and great with live music and the waterway to watch.

I had to include a picture for Jarett our grandson and his friends of an actual pitcher plant. I had never seen one in person. It collects water in the bottom and the bugs get trapped there to be later digested by the plant.

I tried a sample remedy for bug bites at a nautral remedy booth. It seems yesterday on the way to dinner we walked through a baseball field and we literally jumped on by a few enthusiastic dogs. I think I either have flea bites or no- see-em bites but it was rough sleeping last night. When we went down the islands the no -see-ems are unmerciful to me. I have even thought their bites brought on a bronchial thing twice while visiting the VBI's. But later when we went down for seven months that proved to be unrelated. (Vero Beach Riverside Restaurant was recommended by cruisers and is located under the bridge nearest the VB Municial Marina). Use the side walks !!

When you get to this town you notice much more pelicans than any other place we have been.