Miami – Ft Lauderdale

The run to Ft Lauderdale was about 5 or 6 hours and we were scheduled to pick up our “river pilot” Scott mid-afternoon. You can see from the map – the red line shows our route – why we needed a pilot first time up the river to the marina.

As we approached the cut into Fort Lauderdale we saw a huge submarine steaming in at a great rate of knots. It’s one of those sights that’s both menacing and magnificent. Spot the little men on deck.

The first bridge, the 17th Street Bridge, opened on the hour and half hour – naturally we missed the opening by about a minute and had to wait for half an hour on the south side of the bridge. The bridge raises quite briefly and you have to be quick off the mark and hope that you don’t meet anything big coming the other way. Once past, we picked up our pilot at the end of one of the water streets. Scott is not actually a river pilot: he’s the Lagoon guru at CatCo and was coordinating our repairs and warranty work. Scott is larger than life, known by everyone who’s anyone at the marina and can get things done. In the case of river piloting, he directed us through the fantastically pretty water suburbs, with a commentary, and radioed ahead to the subsequent 4 or 5 bridges that open on demand so we didn’t have to change speed at any point en route.

Once safely parked, we were able to explore the marina and discovered the Captain’s Lounge. This was Alex’s heaven: it had a big TV and the Disney channel. Sadly he did have to share it with adults, but he was able to get his TV fix. We met a lovely Captain called Keith who gave Chris a lift to a Thai takeout and took a real interest in the kids.

1st pic: The map of our route through the city
2nd pic: A submarine
3rd pic: The 17th bridge raising and boats coming towards us
4th pic: A river "street"