Ft Lauderdale - at a mooring

Ah, Ft Lauderdale and warm weather!

Finally it is getting warm! We left Boynton Beach this morning with temperatures in the 50's, that's cold for Florida! However, we had a full sun and with our cockpit enclosure, it warmed up nicely to an extent that we had to open the curtains to get rid of the excess heat, it felt good. Today, Sunday, was the day of 15 bridges. They are all spaced and timed so you don't have to slow down or wait for them to open but we did run into one bridge that was inoperable for awhile. We had to tie up to a park bulkhead for 1/2 hour waiting for them to fix it. Eventually, the mechanics arrived and we made it through.

Downtown was bumper to bumper

The trip down through the "canyon" wasn't nearly as bad as we expected, there wasn't that much traffic. At one point we actually got stopped for speeding!! We were tooling along at 6.5 knots and a police boat with flashing blue lights pulled up along side and said to back off to 1000 rpm. For us that's about 3 kts, way too slow to make the next bridge in time. He didn't give us a ticket, just a warning so after he continued on north, we increased our speed just enough to make the bridge. Seriously, we were not putting out any wake, I think it was a slow morning and we were the only boat out that early, what else to do?

Hoolie never fails to attract a few admirers

We're now in the Ft Lauderdale mooring field, right in the middle of downtown, close enough to walk to the beach, which of course we did! Even in the middle of winter the place was packed. The beach was not as crowded as during spring break but there were plenty of bikinis out.

Nighttime at the mooring field

Since the weather forecast is good, we'll leave Monday morning for Miami and Marine Stadium and even warmer weather!