CODA BAHAMAS BOUND 2025 (11)

 CODA :  Arrival in Fort Lauderdale, a.k.a. the yachting capital of the world.

20 January 2025

Harbour Towne Marina, Dania, Florida  

A rather colorful Pompano Beach drawbridge.

Marc-  I started off completing a long overdue project: finally having a working depth sounder (Charlie, it really is phenomenal!).  This will certainly be helpful in The Bahamas.  Sue made an excellent breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast with coffee, of course.  

It was otherwise a rather miserable day due to the rainy weather.  But we were warm and dry inside  CODA's pilothouse.  We popped out for a few photos from time to time.  Most of the excitement involved passing through 16 drawbridges.  Each of them had their own timetable.  At first we were exempt to bridge schedules by following a commercial tugboat and barge through a few bridges (bridges open on demand for commercial vessels).  Unfortunately the tugboat and barge arrived at its destination (a waterfront construction site).  There is a lot of construction in this part of Florida.  It is everything from building up an island with sand and gravel to building houses, to tear downs of houses for new construction (there are only so many waterfront lots after all).

I am sure this mansion replaced a small ranch house.

They also tear down large Mediterranean style houses.

One of the newer homes on the ICW.

I am not sure what to call this one except large.

Unfortunately darkness arrived well before we could end our travels.

A Fort Lauderdale mega yacht of which there are many.

This is a cruise ship we passed as the rain increased.  Thankfully there is a windshield wiper on our front window.

We passed a large cruise ship port as well as a large container ship port before we came to our dock for the night.  It was actually exciting going through Fort Lauderdale and Port Everglades at night.  The drawbridge operators were also nicer.  

Sue:  It was not a beautiful day.  Dreary all day and rainy most of the day.  But there was plenty to see.  The homes got even nicer, which is so hard to believe but true, as we got into Ft. Lauderdale.  But it got dark and I couldn't take more photos.  Some homes were so large you really couldn't get them all in the photo.  They wrapped around corners with guest houses, pool houses and who knows what.  Just unbelievable.  The money down here is mind boggling.  

It was a bit scary being on the water in the dark, but because we were in the Intracoastal and in Ft. Lauderdale, there was quite a bit of lighting.  And thank goodness for the electronic charts.  And thank goodness for Marc, who knows what he's doing.  It was reminiscent of our first date when we sailed from Plymouth over to Wellfleet, and he navigated the long channel into Wellfleet in the dark.  The harbormaster said "You came in here in the dark?"  I don't ever want to travel in the boat in the dark again.  Because there were so many bridges today, we lost a lot of time.  We didn't leave early enough.

The marina closed 2+ hours before we arrived, so there was no help docking at the huge pilings with the weird little dock that you can't safely get onto in the dark and the rain.  The safe way to get off is from the bow of the boat to the main part of the dock.  How they expect you to lasso the pilings, I don't know, but Marc managed to do it.  We took a walk around the marina, and they were our first steps off the boat in 2 days.  It is 66 degrees, but somehow I am cold, probably because we got wet docking.