The rich and the filthy rich

I am going back to this posting on Wed, Feb 16 to elaborate. I had spent two hours that morning writing my usual wonderful blog (hahaha) and it got completely lost. My connection to the server had vanished, and nothing I typed in could be saved. Therefore, I initially just typed a few captions and was done with it, until now.

This is approaching the Miami skyline last Tuesday morning, Feb 8. I was pretty impressive, similar to when we'd approached New York City and Chicago. In this case, I was ina wide bay but had to stay within the channel markers. It still is remarkable to be in broad "ocean" waters and it being only a couple feet deep except for the dredged channel.

We entered the Miami Harbor amid tall shiny sky scrapers, massive cruise ships, and ocean freighters. We had to wait 20 minutes for a bridge to open, so I shut off the engine and we lollygagged on a perfect, windless morning. Once thru the bridge, we turned east (right) to move to an anchorage near South Beach, the famous touristy strip that is stereotypical Miami Beach.

This picture is one of the many channels lined with expensive homes, each with a swimming pool. At the end of this channel was our anchorage along with five sailboats, in a spot called Sunset Lake. It was only 11:30, and immediately Lee and I dropped the dinghy, loaded the bikes, and took off for the afternoon. We actually had to dinghy about three or four miles, a long way, down little canals until we reached a place to tie up and unload.

Then we rode south to South Beach along the ocean pathway, teeming with eye candy that of course we didn't look at. Young and old, from all over the world it seemed from the accents (in addition to Spanish), all enjoying a sunny, hot day where the beautiful people sunbathe. And cruise up and down in their muscle cars and imported sports cars to show off and see who wants to catch a ride.

We stopped to walk out onto the beach, and look how crowded it was! I had to close my eyes because of all the cute.... Anyway, we weren't dressed to join the bathers, so we headed to find lunch along the happinin ocean avenue. Somewhere in there, walking my bike down the sidewalk, I "lost" my wallet, or someone lost it for me. What a pain that turned out to be, losing my wallet. Lee has had to pay for every single thing, and I will write him a check tomorrow (Feb 17) when we depart for the airport.

We eventually rode back to where the dinghy was, and continued on a big loop trip around other homes and channels until we found our way back to the boat. We saw a manatee, but only for an instant. We passed huge yachts, one with a "regular" speed-boat dinghy in addition to an amphibian car/boat. Another had its "garage door" open at its stern to reveal two jet skis and other toys. These were the rich. The next day we would discover the filthy rich.

We left early the next morning and headed up to Ft. Lauderdale. Before we reached the main yachting haven, it is a port for ocean freighters. There was this Chiquita Banana freighter being pushed by a tug up to a dock to unload as we passed by.

It was windy when I docked the boat at our marina, and I was pushed sideways into the huge yacht next to me. I scratched his hull, but we could not tell how serious it was. The owner took all my insurance info and called in a repair man. Luckily it turned out to be only a blemish, and the guy waxed it away in 10 seconds. I gave him some bills for his trouble.

Lee and I then went sightseeing. We bought all-day tickets on the water taxi, which travels up and down among the massive estates and mega yachts to 13 different stops. We had a captain and narrator who told stories of whose homes or yachts we were seeing, and their shtick was hilarious. We were laughing the whole time. I would love to repeat some of them, but...Suffice to say, the FILTHY rich live in Ft Lauderdale and the city from our vantage was way too opulent.

this is just one of hundreds of mega yachts. When we first arrived and had not yet docked, I was stunned at how huge the "ships" were and they were everywhere. One like this, visiting at a marina, had to pay close to #1500/day to tie up there (we paid $72). I was gawking at all the ships so intently that I passed up our marina and had to circle back to it. One yacht was $81 million.

One of thousands of opulent mansions there. The water taxi narrator said one paid $44,000 per month in property taxes. The stories of their lavishness were endless. One had its swimming pool on the roof (every single one had a swimming pool).

We eventually got off the water taxi to have dinner, then got back on it for the ride home, getting to see the mansions and yachts all lit up for show. The next morning we did chores like laundry and washing down the boat, and then departed at noon.
Under the second bridge were these iguana. Aren't they cool?

A little farther along we came to Joe Namath's home back when he was his most famous, in the late 60s and early 70s. We knew this only because our water taxi host had told us about it. We also saw right about there our best view of manatees since Crystal River weeks earlier. A mom and her calf swam slowly along with us as I put the boat into neutral so we could extend our view of these massive creatures.

As we continued north, we went under dozens of bridges and continued to see opulent and fabulous homes/yachts. No bridge, however, was as fancy as this one. We ended that day in South Palm Beach, anchored up in a little bay, 33 miles north of Ft Lauderdale.