Wanderers : Fort Lauderdale Part I

Tuesday, December 17th, after neither one of us had a good night's sleep 💤, we woke up at 7:30 am, which is late for us, especially since we wanted to make the 8:00 am bridge 🌉 opening. We sprang into action, unhooked the electric ⚡ and water, untied the lines, pulled in the fenders, and made the bridge opening all before having coffee ☕. The funny thing is the tide was low enough and we didn't need an opening.

Of course, we passed gorgeous homes today bigger and more extravagant than the ones I have previously posted. I only took a couple of pictures today the first house is for sale for a measly $4.9 and the other had the biggest Trump flag I have seen. We have traveled over 1060 miles on the ICW and have seen about as many "Trump 2020" flags as American flags (just an observation, not a political statement). The one thing I noticed was a lot of the homes were decorated for Christmas and I thought it would be nice to see at night when everything was lit up.

For sale and recently reduced to $4,995,00

We had to deal with 21 drawbridges 🌉 today. The only good news was they were pretty much timed to open as we arrived at each one by averaging about 7 knots. We have seen a lot of wildlife but today was the first day that we did not see any dolphins 🐬, but as usual we did see plenty of pelicans. As we arrived early at the Atlantic Boulevard Bridge we decided to pull into the Taha Marine Center to fuel up, first time since Hilton head, SC. As Rob was fueling I actually saw my first manatee, sorry no picture. We have been passing sign after sign "Manatee Zone No Wake" and in Vero we saw bubbles, an indication of a manatee, but I had not yet actually seen a manatee until today.

Pelicans

Manatee Zone

Welcome sign at Commercial Blvd. Bridge

Cooley's Landing has been great about keeping in contact. They had called Rob as they thought we were coming in Monday instead of Tuesday. When I spoke to James he gave me explicit directions on where our slip was located and informed me the current could be as high as 4 1/2 knots, try to time with slack tide and his lunch is 1:00 pm. Of course high tide is @ 12:49 pm. What he did not tell me was the traffic that goes up and down the river. The traffic is dinner cruise boats and mega yachts that need tug boats to maneuver. Thank God we did not encounter one while we were going upriver.

Mega yacht

Jungle Queen Riverboat

To get to Cooley's Landing you have to leave the ICW and go west on the New River and under 4 bridges (part of the 21), one is a railway that is normally open but today, of course, there is a train going by as we arrive. The New River looks like a canal, but just a little bigger, but there is a lot of traffic. We originally thought we would arrive around 1 but due to all the bridges it was about 2:10 pm and of course the current was pretty strong. After several attempts we went into the slip bow first. Safely tied and all secured.

On Wednesday Rob called a hand specialist that was provided to us from Rosalyn at Indian River Rehabilitation Center. He called around 9:45 and he was able to get a 10:30 appointment. We raced around to get ready and took an Uber 🚗 to see Robin at Fort Lauderdale Hand ✋ Clinic. Robin was very surprised at the movement Rob had in his fingers and that he was not experiencing any pain. Robin gave him a hand massage, explained exercises he could perform, and remolded his cast.

Since half the day was gone we decided we might as well do boat work which included doing laundry, inflating the fenders and beginning to secure items for our 2 week absence. We haven't done laundry since Jacksonville so I had 4 loads of laundry. This is the first place we did not use coins for laundry -- it required a credit card or apple🍎pay.

So much laundry I needed the cart

We are located in Old Fort Lauderdale which is a quaint little area. There is Riverwalk, Broward Center for Performing Arts, Museum of Discovery and Science, Historic area, and plenty of restaurants.

Map of area

New River Inn (c.1905)

Today after completing our chores we explored the Museum of Discovery and Science. Rob attempted flying a paper airplane ✈ and I attempted a simulator plane, both of us crashed and burned ♨. We both were able to see what it felt like to fly, Rob could only use one arm. We seen the Brink of Extinction in the IMAX theater, foxes, monkeys, and red crabs were saved. Pretty cool museum.