Boating Adventures - Day 158 - Fort Lauderdale, FL

Fort Lauderdale, the Venice of America, is undoubtedly the boating capitol of the US.  The area just north of Port Everglades along A1A (SE 17th Street) is loaded with big name boat dealers, brokers and working marinas.  More of these are found in the downtown just a little over a mile north and east along new river.

Working marinas along SE 17th

Downtown marina

That's a 92 foot Riva worth millions at the Apex Marina

The area south of 17th Street is loaded with expensive homes along an intricate and expansive system of canals.  Our home for the last 5 days was the Lauderdale Yacht Club on SE 12th street, which is located on the east end of two of the canals with a spectacular view of the ICW.

Lauderdale Yacht Club looking southeast

This was our first stay at a yacht club and we could easily get used to the yacht club culture.  Quiet, good security, great facilities and a first class restaurant with reasonable prices.  The only hang-up is they don't allow dogs.  But they were tolerant of the Fury Kid.  Another bonus was having dinner each night and having a view of Guided Discovery.

Self explanatory

Pam stayed with us on Monday night and on Tuesday, we spent the afternoon exploring the Fort Lauderdale canals.  The sights were absolutely amazing with large boats, large yachts and mega yachts about.  Pam acted as my tour guide and captained the Caribe.

The homes along the canals are also spectacular.

Note the large yacht parked to the left

And they're still building

As we journeyed up New River to the downtown area we were literally caught in a traffic jam (on the water).

And of course there's Steven Spielberg's 280 foot 7 Seas docked just north of Port Everglades.  See the last article for more pictures of 7 Seas.

The weather was spectacular (although slightly overcast with a front approaching)T

And Pam had a ball piloting the dingy although she was a little heavy on the throttle.  I'm not sure she was thrilled with my constant reminders that we were in no/minimum wake zones.  Oh well, there were no cops around.

Written by Les.