'I wanna get on a boat!"
That was Mr13's response to the question I asked him yesterday, which was, "What do you want to do?" Fair enough -- we'll find you a boat, buddy! Our Florida hotel concierge had a $450 boat rental she wanted to sell us, which we firmly declined, and then she lost interest in us. Fair enough -- our boat experience instead was the much more reasonably priced Water Taxi, which runs from Hollywood to Fort Lauderdale back and forth on the Intracoastal Waterway. So, on a lovely 80-degree day we set out on our modest boat adventure.
We had to head south a bit through Hollywood to pick up some more passengers before swinging around and heading north to Fort Lauderdale. At Joe's Tiki Hut there were more people wanting to board than we had seats, so one of the boat crew announced that in a scant 15 minutes another Water Taxi would be coming by -- a double-decker with a bathroom and fruity drinks -- and if we wanted to get off and wait for that, we could do so to make room for others now. Fifteen minutes...hmm, I thought, that's not so bad, and fruity drinks are yum. So we got off. What Mr. Boat Crew Guy neglected to tell us was that yes, another Water Taxi would indeed be coming by in 15 minutes, but it WOULDN'T BE STOPPING. It took a full HOUR of waiting in the hot sun for the promised boat to return. Grr.
Once we got onboard and got a nice breeze going, we felt better. The Intracoastal is pretty, and there are lots of nature-y and boaty sights to see.
Switched boats to head up towards the city to our final destination of Las Olas, a nice shopping/dining area in Fort Lauderdale. We were all ooh-ing and aah-ing over the beautiful homes.
Off the boat we went! We were starvin' by this time and ended up at a great restaurant right by the water: Wild East Asian Bistro. We had tuna sushi, spring rolls, curry chicken udon, and so much more, including a sake flight for Mama. Oh, it was so so good!
After that, we walked down Las Olas, I bought two pair of shoes, we ate gelato, then had friend Stacy come pick us up. Later on, we ate delicious Cuban food and nearly exploded from overload of delicious. Good day.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman