Ft Lauderdale, FL
Last night was fantastic. Meredith, on a mooring ball at the Las Olas Municipal Marina, is in the company of a group of long distance cruisers.
The Las Olas Marina maintains 10 or 12 mooring balls available for $30 a night. This marina is significant for being situate immediately adjacent to the Bahia Mar Marina, base for the Busted Flush, houseboat home and base of Travis McGee. No young man in North America grew up without an intimate knowledge of Travis McGee.
From Las Olas you are blocks away from downtown Lauderdale and, once you tire of window shopping for $5,000 shirts, only a short dinghy ride from the sorts of stores people like you and I might actually patronize.
The dinghy ride is through a bunch of run down homes with sticker prices in the 8 or 9 digit range.
Right: the BC and Bob go house shopping.
After a good dinghy ride Peter and Jane and the BC and I landed our dinghies at a local park and walked to the nearby French Bakery where we indulged in Almandine and Beignet and indulgent little fruit pastries as we listened to soft jazz interpretations from a patio jazz trio.
Dinner was agreed amongst the "boats on balls" to be table for eight at Coconuts Bahamian Grill, a local haunt that has absolutely no connection to coconuts or anything Bahamian.
Left: left to right: Peter, Robin from Robin Leigh, the BC
Right: Jane from Kinvara
Promising little on entry Coconuts Bahamian grows on you. Before you gain a complete awareness of the seemingly uninspired environment the joint is humming, drink is flowing and the talk animated. Everywhere. The food is exceptional as it should be in a restaurant where half the clientele arrives by chaufered limo.
Stone Crabs at Coconuts Bahamian Grill
We completed the dinner service with Espresso Martinis all around. The restaurant staff all wore Tshirts with the logo "Be Nice" on the LHS breast pocket and three stylized fishes on the back. Through the entire dinner service Peter good naturedly teased the hell out of me: turning his hand vertically and wiggling his fingers like a little fish swimming saying "Be Nice" over and over and over.
Finishing my first martini and setting into the second I achieved a modicum of nice.
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