Tarpon Scavengers and Playing the Bachelor Card

Fort Lauderdale – 2 miles by dinghy, 18 metres swam

For the last workday of the week I constructed an immaculate breakfast egg scramble, cojoined by a raisin and cinnamon bagel. I wasn’t sure about the flavour pairings, but it worked just fine and I enjoyed my eats in the cockpit as I watched the boats, cars, and people coming and going.

 

I had plans today to meet my buddy Stillman and his friend Scott at Coconuts for lunch so I spent the morning working on boat jobs and fixed one of our two remaining water leaks by taking a wooden dowel and hammer, swimming to the front starboard side of the boat, and banging it into the thru hull of the forward head. One of the previous owners had removed the toilet in the forward cabin and converted it to a shower room, so the valve connecting the holding tank to the thru hull hasn’t been in use for years, but we discovered early in the trip that this valve had been leaking. The temporary fix worked and next time we take the boat out of the water I will replace the entire assembly.

 

I rode the dinghy to Coconuts, which is just across the ICW from the anchorage, and enjoyed an excellent Mahi-Mahi sandwich and French fries for lunch. Stillman’s friend and business partner Scott is a great guy and they told me all about the two start-ups they’ve worked together on for the past ten years. We decided to dinghy back to the boat for a beer before they had to return to Boca (Stillman had ballet-dad duties to attend to), but as we were leaving they pointed out the dozens of smaller fish and two giant tarpon hanging out in the waters beneath the restaurant deck, no doubt waiting for a morsel of food to drop off somebody’s plate – a ketchup-dipped French fry, a wad of mayonnaise-saturated brioche bun, a leaf of feathery lettuce, or if they were really lucky, a scrap of their flame-grilled buddy they were just swimming around with a couple of days ago, making crab jokes and checking out the lady fish.

 

I gave Scott a tour of SeaLight, we had a drink, then I zipped them back across to Coconuts to pick up their vehicle. I then returned to the boat and did not leave for the remainder for the day. I made some calls – spoke to Ben and Kate in Bahamas, my buddy David Leng in Brantford, Ana and Stella, and later on that night had a long call with my bro Marty and caught up on all their news. I wrote for a while, did a bit of reading, then looked at “Exercise” on my daily list of things to do, and the twinge of guilt I felt propelled me to loop a scrap of rope over our solar arch, tie on one of the boat cleaning brushes, and do a few sets of desperate lifts on the jury-rigged pull-up bar. I thought for sure the stick would break and I’d plunge into the water, likely smashing a body part on the way down, but it held, and the only resulting injury will be some sore muscles tomorrow.

As sunset approached, I paddled over to see Cheyne and Marilyn on sailing vessel Herkee, and to invite them for a sundowner. These are the folks on the catamaran we met briefly when we first arrived at the anchorage. I apologized for not connecting with them sooner and explained that Ana was back in Canada for the week (hence, unwittingly and accidentally playing the coveted and foolproof “bachelor card”). They insisted I join them instead for drinks and dinner, and after a quick run back to the boat to grab my contribution of two sausages and a bottle of red, we enjoyed a long, slow, delicious dinner then an extended visit where we shared our various life histories. I introduced them to a game we invented in SeaLight’s cockpit this summer with our friends Greg and Sharon. Each person has ten minutes to tell the others their life history, from birth to now. Marilyn took a bit of prodding as she is quiet and proclaims herself an introvert, but once she got going, the stories flowed rapidly. Cheyne is a great talker so he had no problem filling the ten minutes, and I think he went into overtime for 70 minutes longer. They have an incredible shared history, full of surprises and globetrotting adventures. They’re on their fifth trip to Bahamas so gave me many tips and suggestions for our trip. I can’t wait for Ana to return so we can meet up with them again.

 

A Paddle Loss, A Beautiful Beach, A Suspect Meal

Fort Lauderdale – 5 kilometres walked, 13 metres swam, 2 miles paddled

I began my first day of bachelorhood with a paddleboard ride. I unlashed my board from the lifelines on the boat, dropped it in the water, then turned to grab the paddle we normally keep on deck. Gone. I know it did not fall in the water as we keep it well secured on deck, and we haven’t been in any rough waters since I last used it. I called Ana and she didn’t remember seeing it when we were cleaning the boat the day before so we’re not sure exactly when it went missing. It either fell overboard somehow or somebody stole it. It was a good reminder to keep anything we don’t want to lose on the boat locked securely.

 

Fortunately, I was able to use one of the spare oars I had picked up for the dinghy back in Annapolis and it worked fine – just had to do more sitting than standing, but nonetheless had a great arm workout paddling against the tidal current on the way back.

 

I spent the rest of the morning on boat jobs – identifying the cause of a pesky electrical issue with our water pump, searching for a spare starter, stowing away all of the winter clothes and gear we no longer need, greasing throttle cables, and climbing in the cockpit locker to figure out the model number of our tachometer for an LED replacement (and in the process finding a spare boat hook I didn’t know about – that makes four so we should be good for a while).

 

The remainder of yesterday’s guac and tortilla chips made a fine lunch and after that I walked to the beach and found it packed with people on a picture perfect Fort Lauderdale afternoon - 27 degrees, slight breeze, just enough waves to play around in, and few clouds. I walked the sometimes mushy, sometimes firm beach until my calves were screaming for mercy, then dropped my stuff and went for a swim in the bathtub water. I floated on my back looking up at the sky. It didn’t matter what day it was. It didn’t matter what time it was. I was doing exactly what I’ve imagined I’d be doing on a fine day in the south. And I was happy for it. And to make it even better I received a message from Kate and Ben saying they had successfully completed the Gulf Stream crossing and they were safely in Bimini, Bahamas!

 

Hiding in a neglected pocket of my backpack was an ancient Cohiba cigar, pronounced dead  back in Canada due to poor moisture levels and frigid temperatures. Well, I’ll be damned if the ideal tropical weather hadn’t reincarnated that crumbling dog turd and produced a fine smoke. And I smoked it slowly and purposefully as I watched the world happening around me. A lovely couple down the beach to my left, very much in love, holding hands from their chairs, leaning over once in a while to kiss, and laughing often. Another couple down to my right, lying on towels, her leg wrapped over his body, staring into each others’ eyes. Bikini’d hotties, some young, some older, mostly women, but some men too, strutting up and down the beach with triangular fabric patches hiding none of their butts, letting the world have a look and radiating that sensitive rearskin with generous sunshine. Moms and dads and kids played further down the beach, digging holes, forming castles of sand, channeling water through moats, throwing flying discs, body surfing on waves, laughing, running. I noticed no motorized vehicles in the water; just people.

 

The body was starting to ache from inactivity so I gathered my things, had a fresh water rinse at a water station, then walked the beach until the string of hotels and restaurants and condos disappeared and palm trees began. I moved onto the street and walked back, finding a Starbucks where I tested the wifi, got myself a decaffeinated Americano for more than the price of a beer, and seated myself overlooking the ocean, then wrote and posted. Hours passed quickly and I did not leave until the shadows were touching the sea.

Back at the anchorage dinghy dock, near the garbage can, I found a pile of nautical cast-offs, including a broken but usable paddleboard paddle and a spare prop that fits our dinghy engine. I scavenged those items and slinked back to the boat like a guilty hyena with a rabbit carcass in its mouth.

 

Hunger was gnawing at my guts so I scoured the fridge in desperate bachelor mode and found two plastic containers of nourishment – one was yesterday’s paella and the other was older and had potatoes, green beans, and a chunk of strangely white pork. I, as a waster of no good things, took the older one and dumped it into the frying pan, but as it heated it gave off a suspect aroma. It wasn’t quite bad but it was not good either. I thought back to the origins of this meal. It wasn’t with Tony. It wasn’t the day before that, or the day before that. I envisioned all our previous dinner and this one did not register. It was when I pulled up the blog to try and Sherlock the date of the food remains that I felt a ghostly apparition of Ana sitting on my shoulder. It leaned into my ear and whispered, “Just throw it out. I know it will hurt to waste food, but just trust me on this one.”

I tossed it in the garbage, heated up the sweet fresh paella and enjoyed a fabulous dinner, then played uke for a couple hours, watched a bit of tv, and surrendered to the Sandman.

I Lost My Girl…Temporarily

Fort Lauderdale – 5 kilometres walked, 10 metres swam

The whole crew was up early and bolted into action with a flurry of grapefruit squirts, toast crumbs, showers, hair drying, wet towels, coffee splashes, flight checking, Uber booking, and last-minute packing. I had Ana and Tony to shore minutes before the Uber arrived. I hugged Tony and knew it wouldn’t be long before I saw him again. And my girl? Well, I hugged her and kissed her then hugged her again, told I that I loved her, and asked her to give the kids a hug and kiss from me and that I’d be here for them when they all returned in a week.

And with that, I was alone.

To get me started, I went for a walk to the beach, despite the unstable weather and cells of rainstorms passing through southern Florida. I wore my tractionless flip flops with Teflon tread, and halfway across the bridge I slipped on a section of shiny steel and nearly flip flopped onto my arse. In the past, this sort of thing could have tweaked my lower back and taken me out of action for months, but my back is in much better shape these days so I escaped unharmed.

My plans for a swim were thwarted by six-foot swells blown up by the strong easterly wind so instead I walked down the beach and was mostly alone. It started to rain heavily but since I was wearing a swimsuit, singlet, and carried only a towel, it didn’t bother me; in fact, I enjoyed it. Rain doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t damage your clothes. Yet whenever rain starts to fall, people race for cover as if there are fireballs plummeting from the sky. Today, I walked slow, slicked my hair back, wiped the water from my eyes, and watched the rain clean the palm leaves, the clay tile roofs, the spilled beer and French fry ketchup from the sidewalks, the iguana poo from their perching spots on the concrete walls, the dusty stucco walls on buildings, condo balconies, and all the grit and shit on the streets, washing it all away in a natural flush-down. It had been a while since we’ve seen a proper rain shower, so perhaps I appreciated it more than normal.

As I was climbing up onto SeaLight my terrible footwear again gave out and I did a slow motion fall onto the swim platform then onto the dinghy, narrowly avoiding a plunge into the ocean. Again, no injuries, but I took the hint from the cosmos and made a note to toss them in the garbage bin next time I went to shore. 

Ana and I do not spent much time apart, so whenever it happens I feel lost. It takes some time to adjust to not having her so I knew today was going to be weird. I believe that absence does make the heart grow fonder so short breaks are not a bad thing (and I was already excited at the thought of seeing her again in a week), but it did mean I would have a lot of hours to fill. Hence, once back inside the boat I wrote a list of daily goals on the back of the Cruising World magazine Tony left behind, December 2024 edition:

1. Write

2. Exercise

3. Practice ukulele

4. Read

5. 1 Boat job

I felt better with a plan, but still loitered around the boat for a while, ill at ease, restless, and purposeless. I cleaned a bit (to bachelor's standard; not Ana's), watched some tv, checked my fuel log, ate a four-day-old Walhburger I found hiding in the fridge behind the salsa, made some other lists, listened to music, and sometimes just stood there looking out the window. By early afternoon the storms had passed so I got the hell out of the boat and returned to the beach for that swim I was looking for, and by then the calmer water and hot sands were full of people. I had my swim then walked the beach for a long time and found a washing station so had a nice fresh water rinse then went across the street to Bo’s Beach Bar in search of wifi. Until now Ana had been sharing her voluptuous data plan with me via a hotspot connection so I was able to post journals and photos with abandon. My own data plan is not voluptuous; it is pale, thin, and weakly.

Well, Bo’s 24-ounce American lager special was pretty good, but the wifi did not work. So I got some writing time in, but was unable to post anything. My search will continue; only 37 bars left on Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard to test out. 

I wandered back to the boat late in the afternoon with an uncomfortable number of hours yet to consume. I read a book as I lounged in the sun-warmed cockpit, made myself a pretty decent guacamole for dinner, practiced ukulele until my fingers were sore, had a ninety minute call with the Newport Tech Committee, then watched some tv until shortly after Mariner’s Midnight.

Made it through my first day without my girl.

Banana Pancakes, Spectacular Paella, and Legal Water

Fort Lauderdale – 8 nautical miles sailed, 9 kilometres walked, 7 kilometres by bus

I awoke to sporadic rain showers and the wind not blowing the boat apart for a change, as the breeze had shifted and slackened. Tony was up shortly after me so we made coffees and had an early morning chat in the cockpit. It was so nice having my buddy here for a visit.

 

Despite my better judgement, I let Ana buy a small bunch of mini-bananas yesterday and bring them on board. Normally, bananas are unconditionally banned on SeaLight as they are proven to cause horrendous bad luck on boats. But she convinced me that the electrical problem with the fridges yesterday somehow short circuited the banana curse and bought us at least a day’s reprieve. She had already eaten half of them, but a cold shudder racked my body when I spotted the remaining ones on the counter in the morning. In a panic, I started mixing batter for banana pancakes and, of course, American pork in a tube, which has never been known to inflict ill fortunes.

 

After our leisurely breakfast we dinghy’d into shore and walked up Las Olas Boulevard to the Riverwalk – a mile or so of pathways along the canal, which was nice enough, but not overly spectacular. While there, we looked across the canal to Smokers Family Park (insert underage nicotine joke here) and spotted one of our mooring neighbours docked and loading up on water and free power. Their 45’ catamaran would have a much shallower draft than us, but we hoped we’d be able to squeeze in and legit fill our tanks instead of another daring night raid. We returned to the boat, fired her up, tied the dinghy to the mooring ball to stake our claim, then motored down the ICW and up the New River. Our solar system had been struggling to recharge the batteries with the recent cloudy days so it was nice getting a little juice boost from the engine alternator.

 

We eased up to the park wall and the crew secured SeaLight effortlessly and flew into action plugging in the power cord for more charging, filling the boat water tanks and portable jugs, and even giving the boat a quick scrub and fresh water rinse. I watched the depth gauge nervously as the available water beneath our keel went from 0.5 feet to 0.3 and to 0.2 with the ebbing current of the falling tide. We moved as quickly as we could, but by the time we had the hose and power cord put away and the lines untied we were grounded and the boat wasn’t floating away. So I gave the engine throttle a hard pump in reverse and she slid right off. With a sigh of relief we motored back to the mooring, full of water and boiling over with joy. I was so happy I even helped a sailboat of Quebecers pick up a mooring ball – the one which had lost its pendant and sent the previous tenant into the wall. I wished them better luck, then returned to SeaLight and hung some fenders just in case.

By this time it was 4pm and we hadn’t found time for lunch, so Ana put out some cracker and hummus snacks as we enjoyed cockpit cocktails and she forbade either of Tony or myself from helping with dinner, as she could see we were enjoying ourselves immensely sharing tales of adventure and stupidity. 45 minutes later she delivered a platter of toasted garlic bread and a spectacular paella, filled with fresh sausage, pan fried shrimp, and bits and pieces of various delicious sea creatures. It was heavenly. And there were leftovers for a future lunch.

 

She did let us help with dishes and while I was walking through the cabin with a towel drying the paella scoop, I rammed my toe into an wooden edge.

“Kayyy-rhist!!” I said as I jumped up and down on the other foot.

 

“What’d you do?” she asked, shocked.

 

“Stubbed my toe,” I squeaked, then looked down at the floor and noticed something lying there. “Holy shit, my nail’s off!”

 

“What??” she said.

 

I bent down for a closer look. “Oh, it’s just a piece of rice. I’m good.” She sent us back out to the cockpit.

 

We had opened all the cockpit panels so with the breeze rushing through Ana suggested we have our post dinner cigars there instead of on deck. We fired up the Romeo and Julieta look-alikes we bought yesterday and smoked them down to the nub as we all talked and laughed and enjoyed the pleasures of floating on the water on a warm Florida December night.

Farewell to Waddington (Again), Scotch Sampling, Rainstorm

Fort Lauderdale – 9 kilometres walked

We watched Waddington sail away as Ben and Kate embarked on the next leg of their journey. We hoped to next see them in the Bahamas in the coming weeks, but where that would be, nobody knew.

 

During the night one of our catamaran neighbours broke loose of their mooring ball and were slammed by the wind into the sea wall, so we took and extra line and ran it through the lower ring on ours as a safety in case the pendant was equally weak as our neighbour’s. Somebody hasn’t been maintaining their balls very well.

 

After breakfast we realized one of the fridges had stopped working. We discovered a melted fuse in the electrical panel so today was going to be the day to finally fix it once and for all. I’d been procrastinating on this job for lack of appropriate wire – I should have done it weeks ago but I guess we’ve been having too much fun.

 

The walk to a commercial area we haven’t been to yet was long and hot but worthwhile as we passed many interesting places – a house yard full of huge iguanas sunning themselves, some cool trees, a massive bridge over the Port Everglades port with four island-sized cruise ships loading passengers. After a short bagel and fluid stop at Einstein Brothers Bagels we walked a short distance and found the motherlode – a power centre with a T.J. Maxx, Total Wine, and an Ace Hardware.

While Ana shopped the Maxx, Tony and I went to Ace. The nice lady at the checkout asked me to put my backpack in a holding area. Tony told her our chihuahua was in there and to feed it some treats if she heard any noise coming from the bag. I got twenty feet of their finest 14 guage stranded wire then we moved onto Total Wine. This is the ultimate booze store. They stock every beer, wine, and spirits currently available in the world. On our first pass I couldn’t find anything I liked, but eventually settled on a 1.75 litre of caramel-tinged Sailor Jerry spiced rum and a Malibu rum for Ana. Oh, they have cigars too so Tony grabbed a couple of those. A nice lady pulled us over and asked if we’d like to taste some Scotch. We sure did, so we enjoyed a small sampler then stood there staring at her for a minute or two, eyes darting from hers, to the cart of scotch, then back to her, waiting for the next one. She awkwardly waved goodbye and slunk out of there.

 

Ana found us just as we were walking into the Maxx, saving us a painful trip into the scary recesses of the retailer and we walked back to the bus stop, hopped on, and sat across from two schizophrenic passengers deep in conversation with people who weren’t there. We also recognized a girl that sat beside us on a previous bus trip so we were rapidly becoming Lauderdale locals.

 

Back at SeaLight, we fixed the fridge while Ana fixed us an incredible quesadilla lunch/dinner, then we all sealed up hatch and window leaks as the heavens opened and torrential Floridian rain pounded the boat – the first real rainfall we have seen since the end of September. We huddled in SeaLight’s cabin, ate a long and slow dinner, drank a bunch of beer and wine, then surrendered to the evening and went to our respective cabins before the stroke of Mariner’s Midnight.

Schmear, Estate Sale, Commando Mission, and a New Arrival

Fort Lauderdale – 9 kilometres walked

It was a slow morning on SeaLight after last evening’s libations and frivolity. Our only mission today was to do laundry before our friend Tony arrived mid-afternoon.

 

From our location at the mooring field, everything is a long walk, which we don’t mind at all, but it does take time to get places. I had a look at the bus schedules for Sunday but they were infrequent and didn’t quite line up with our schedule, so we foot-powered our way to the Downtown Coin Laundry, dropped in two loads, then walked down the street to Einstein Brothers Bagels for a coffee and what may have been the most delicious bagel we’ve ever eaten – a toasted cheese bagel with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and this incredible flavourful cream cheese sauce Yiddishly called “shmear”. We had a nice chat with Magnus on the phone and got the updates on his final exams and school projects, work, and his final preparations for the upcoming semester in Edinburgh. He is very excited for his trip to visit us and escape the cold winter weather for a week.

 

We returned to the laundry to transfer clothes into the dryers and wait for them to finish. I think laundromats are one of the rare few places left for random human contact – lots of people sitting around in close proximity with nothing to do, and unlike a subway or bus, conversation is not discouraged. Although we didn’t meet any new friends, I did see strangers talking to each other, and everybody seemed fairly happy despite having to do laundry on a Sunday. I wonder how many fabulous romances have been borne from a sock exchange in a laundromat?

 

During the walk back we noticed a sign for a Estate Sale so we bee-lined through the quiet street like dogs on a scent trail. We found it – a classic Floridian ranch, large, with gardens and clay roof tiles. We walked through the open front door and were met by a strapping young lad.

 

“Morning!” he said.

 

“Hi! So everything’s for sale?” said Ana.

 

“Everything. Furniture, paintings, televisions, kitchen equipment. She’s all coming down.”

 

“Coming down?”

 

“Yes. Going to be demolished. Make me an offer on anything.”

 

We walked through the house, dumbfounded. It was a beautiful place that just needed a bit of updating. Besides the lovely pool in the backyard overlooking a canal, it was large, roomy, had top of the line kitchen appliances, three bedrooms, and tranquil spaces. It seemed incredible that this perfectly good house was going to be destroyed.

 

From here it was a short ways to the boat, and by the time we had unpacked the laundry, I received a text from Tony saying he was minutes away. Tony is a great friend of ours from Brantford and we’ve had countless adventures over the years (most of them recorded here…) including an extended trip to Southeast Asia, Mexico, several sailboat repositionings, cruising the North Channel, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario – the list goes on. So when he told me he was going to fly here from southern Texas where he is currently snowbirding, I was thrilled. He’ll only be with us for a couple of day as he’s traveling back to Canada for Christmas on the same flight as Ana.

 

The three of us got settled in the cockpit and I put a cold Life in the Clouds IPA in his hand then we visited and chatted until it was nearly dark. Tony’s spent ample time on SeaLight so needed no introduction to the boat. We shared details on our respective trips through the US (his in a motorhome, ours in a boat) and discussed plans for the coming months. It was great to see him again as it has been a while since we’d spoken in person.

Ben rowed over with two oversized cans of cold Yuengling and joined us for a chat, then we put tactical plans in place for a daring dusk water extraction mission, to test out our new water jugs and to fill his tanks before their expected departure tomorrow. A few days earlier we had located what could be argued was a public water tap – a perfectly visible functioning tap on a vacant lot, and a much better option than the 8-mile dinghy ride it took to fill jugs the last time.

 

We put on our team balaclavas and black jumpsuits then applied black and green facepaint to each other. I made Tony look like a commando raccoon, Ben made Tony into a Taliban circus clown, and I don’t know what Tony crafted me into, but both of them were laughing pretty hard. We snuck across the park, racing from palm tree to palm tree for cover, then waited for a break in the traffic and backflipped across Las Olas Boulevard then ducked behind the large garbage dumpsters near the tap and started filling the jugs.

 

Halfway through the operation an elderly couple passed by and noticed us in the shadows. Ben looked up to the electrical pole and put on his loud municipal worker voice.

 

“Yep, she looks like a right mess up there I’d say,” he said, pointing.

 

“That damn day crew, look at that tangle they left,” Tony added, exasperated, with one eye on the pedestrians and one on the electrical pole. “That’s why they send in the night crew, eh. Clean up the mess from those morning idiots. Well boys, probably time for a coffee break, eh?”

 

The couple completely ignored us and kept walking. Our ruse worked.

 

We capped off the jugs, then waited motionless and invisible for a break in the traffic. When the break came, we slogged across carrying 125 pounds of fresh Fort Lauderdale water in a decidedly non-ninja fashion with our arms lengthening slightly with each step. We made it to the park and didn’t see any cop lights or hear sirens so we kept moving and soon made it back to the dinghies, loaded them, nearly fell in the water a couple of times, then motored them like barge tugs back to the boats. Ana was so delighted with the success of our mission that she loaned us her nail polish remover to take care of the facial grease paint.

Boat Parade, Wahlburgers, and Buckets of Beer

Fort Lauderdale – 20 kilometres by bus, 10 kilometres walked

At 2am we finished up our last drink in the cockpit after a lenthgy and depthy conversation with Ben and Kate, then watched them row back to their boat as the north wind continued to blow viciously. It was the end of a very long and eventful day.

 

We started the day by walking with Kate and Ben to the weekend market, which was rich in tourist trinkets and knick-knacks but rather poor on fruit and veg. Because they had loved the cockpit party so much last night, they decided to stay a couple of days longer in the hopes for more boozing and late night conversation. We would oblige.

At the first opportunity we caught a bus and rode into the depths of industrial Fort Lauderdale. There, we found Boaters Paradise. Sailorman is a massive used boating equipment store and was packed to the rafters with goodies: enormous fenders for cruise ships, rusted mounds of thick anchor chain, diving gear, alternators, wire, clothing, fittings of all shapes and sizes. We picked up a spare boat hook, a rachet strap, and were rewarded with a free tie-dyed t-shirt which I will wear with pride. 

Next, we explored the largest West Marine store I’ve ever seen – surely their flagship. We picked up a spare diesel can and were tempted by some fancy binoculars, but resisted. If I had a few thousand dollars to throw around I could have blown it in minutes.

All that shopping really stirs a hunger so we stopped at Lester’s Diner for second breakfast and feasted with the locals. Next up was McDonald Plumbing, a boater-oriented hardware store that was packed floor to ceiling with everything. If you can’t find what you’re looking for in that store, it probably doesn’t exist. But the name made me think of something.

 

“Kate, I need to ask you a question,” I said as we were walking down the street to our next stop.

“Sure.”

 

“Why do Brits always say ‘Mac-Donalds’?”

 

She looked at me strangely and said, “Because that’s what it’s called. You know, Mackey-Dees?”

 

“But there’s no Mac. It’s Mic. Mickey-Dees.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yep. Look at the sign. McDonalds. But you can call Mackey-Dees or anything you like. I was just curious, like I am with many aspects of the curious English dialect.”

 

Behind the plumbing store was yet more boat retail - Boat Owners Warehouse. I could have spent an hour in that place, but we only had time for a quick look before speed walking to the bus stop and riding in style back to our hood.

Stillman, Ester, and the girls arrived shortly after 5, to a heaving, jammed, and electric Fort Lauderdale. You see, tonight was the annual Christmas Boat Parade, and the place was pumping. Directly across the ICW was a stage with band playing a bitchin set of rock and pop tunes to a boisterous crowd, fueled by a dozen of food and booze vendors. Many more boats had anchored in our basin and parties and music ensued. The streets were locked with traffic and the park near our dinghy dock was full of people in lawn chairs with coolers.

 

After a lovely meal of grass fed, organic, Marky Mark Wahlberg burgers (Yep, it’s a thing, the Wahlberg brothers sell burgers) our fine guests had brought along, we got set up on SeaLight’s deck and watched as the show began.  Boats of all sizes and shapes passed by slowly on the ICW for a full two hours, elaborately decorated, brilliantly lit, some with dozens of guests partying and dancing, others broadcasting EDM and DJ-spun tunes through massive speakers, and still others with huge blinding video screens. It was entrancing. I can’t imagine the hours of labour spent decorating these boats.

 

Besides us lucky ones enjoying the parade from our boats, the folks on shore were having a pretty good time too. In fact, one guy was having so much fun getting wasted that he decided to go for a swim, then remembered he didn’t know how to swim, so our boat neighbour fished him out and rescued him with his dinghy just in time for the cops to arrive, cuff him, and haul him away.

The final boat of the parade was this hideous monstrosity with random, disorganized lights and a huge Amazon logo on the side. It was roundly boo’d by the crowd; strange considering Amazon likely delivered 90% of the crap beneath their Christmas trees. But wait, there was one more boat yet to come. A lighted sailboat, disabled, being pulled along by a Tow Boat US vessel, putting that whimsical final touch on an outstanding boat parade.

 

With that, we dinghy’d into shore, met up with Ben and Kate, and we all walked across the bridge to see if we could get in on the party and live band. Surprisingly, the event had evaporated quickly - all the vendors were packing up as the band played their last few songs. Stillman and his gang took off for home as we continued down the strip, passing packed bars, looking for just the right one. Ah ha! Buckets of beer for $20? Table for four, please.

 

We killed two buckets of beer as we enjoyed the Saturday Night Shenanigans. A young dude at the table beside us would run out to the street and pole dance on the guardrail posts to entertain passing vehicles. Drunks stumbled by and we bet on which would fall over first. A top-hatted partygoer barfed on the road in front of us, then crossed the street and hauled off five more times in a garbage bin, looking all cool and relaxed between heaves. There was a lot to see.

Back at the boat we had the mandatory nightcap and thus, this journal finishes exactly where it began.