March 16, Day 264 – In Fort Lauderdale

We woke up early this morning and went for another walk on the beach. This time we walked in the opposite direction trying to get up to the inlet. It was a little cooler than yesterday and a bit breezy, so a light jacket was needed.

About mid-day we took the water taxi on its entire route – both up and down the intercoastal and up the New River and back. You can take your boat up the New River, but it’s very crowded and navigation can get a bit dicey, so we decided to make the trip by water taxi. The price was right -- $15 for the entire day. We rode to one end and got out and had lunch at Shooters. After lunch we headed the other direction, up the New River towards the main part of town. This is really the high-rent district. Homes were in the 5-25 million dollar range and up. Boats parked in front of the homes were in the same price range or higher. The water taxi drivers gave a running narrative of who owned what (or who used to own it) and approximate costs, etc. Very interesting, but hard to even imagine having the amount of money needed to live in this area. We ended up again in the Las Olas area where we were a couple of days ago. We weren’t hungry, but couldn’t resist ice cream at one of the local shops. We finally caught the water taxi back to the boat where we did fun stuff like pumping the head and filling the water tanks.

We spent a quiet evening on board and then off to bed.

A shot from this morning's walk on the beach -- some unusual trees

Fort Lauderdale is home to the International Swimming Hall of Fame. The building is shaped like a big wave. The outside panels have big murals of Johnny Weissmuller and Ester Williams

This is a shot of the water taxis that run from early morning till midnight

This looks similar to a water taxi, but it's not. It's a diesel delivery truck that runs up and down the river and intercoastal waterway delivering fuel to the yachts.

Here's a shot showing just how busy the waterway is. There is a lot of wake action and boats speeding up and down in both directions.

This is the SE 3rd Avenue Bridge on the New River

The next few pictures are just random shots of some of the "typical" homes on the waterway

This used to be 5 individual homes that were combined into one. There is also a gazebo (at the left of the picture) that has a bell at the top .... made out of gold.

This house was strange looking, but was probably pretty neat in its day. It was the former home of football great Joe Namath.

This home definitely looked out of place -- very small and plain looking. However, it was the former home of Olympic-great (and Tarzan) Johnny Weissmuller

Here's a little yacht, Sweet Pea. She's yours for a mere $53 million