Cruising through Miami to Fort Lauderdale, Home for a week, Fort Lauderdale to Delray Beach, Florida

On Wednesday, March 11, we left Key Biscayne for Harbour Towne Marina in Dania Beach just south of Fort  Lauderdale Airport. We traveled with 3 other looper boats, Weezer, Happy Hour and Summer Breeze, that we had dinner with the night before. This made it easier since we needed several bridges raised to get through. We all got photos of each other's boats while waiting for a bridge to open downtown. Traveling through Miami was not as bad as we had heard, but I think that was because this was a week day and "weekend boater" traffic wasn't happening. A few weeks ago we had traveled to Miami by car for the boat show, so it was fun to see downtown where we stayed from the water.  As we passed by north Miami, I reached out to Jennifer from the boat Huguenot to tell her we were passing by where they were staying and she came out to the dock and took a photo. The homes and condos along the way were amazing as usual! Once settled in Harbour Towne we walked to Mundi's Italian for dinner. 

On Thursday, March 12, we were getting ready to head home for a week the next day. We also were working with mechanics and divers to get some work done on the boat. We had slightly damaged a prop in Marco Island so we decided to get a spare set, and we also needed some fuel filters changed.  Once that was squared away and we were packed, we took an Uber to dinner at Tiki Tiki over on the Intracoastal Waterway that we had passed by boat the day before. Then it was a short walk over to the Atlantic so walked over there and went to Lucky Fish Beach Bar and Grill where they had live music. On the 13th we took an Uber to the airport to fly home and got some "local knowledge" from the Uber driver who is also a boater and learned of good place to look for used or new props. We ended up getting deal on a set of new props over the phone while we were at home. Our old ones will be our much-recommended spare props. It's amazing how God works through others to help us with our concerns & issues, like new props. We had no idea how we were going to find affordable propellers quickly. The Uber driver's recommendation helped tremendously as well as the diver's.

We flew home from Fort Lauderdale to Cedar Rapids on an Allegiant flight from March 13 through 20. Tim's brother Mike, and wife Loree,  drove us both times to Bettendorf. We appreciated the time with them! We saw family and close friends and had several appointments. We also were able to attend our church both Sunday and for the Lent service Wednesday. I have included  the few photos I took while home, which are of Caitlin, Connor and Claire, and Mike and Loree. On both flights we had delays but at least they were not canceled. We rested on Saturday, March 21 after arriving late the night before and also took a few more photos of the large boats at Harbor Towne. On March 22 we traveled to Delray Beach to their city marina. On the way we passed Fort Lauderdale which has a huge shipyard and port, and several cruise ships. We also passed many more stunning homes, condos and boats and which "boggle the mind". We saw a large yacht with the same name as our last boat "As You Wish" so had to take a photo of that.  We saw some funny boats  too, a concession stand boat which was headed to a beach area in Boca Raton, and even a boat that looked like a convertible car. Someone's yard had a pirate and canon statue that looked like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.   Delray Beach City Marina was beautiful and inexpensive, the inexpensive part being very rare in Florida! We walked to nearby Deck 84 on the water and then a short walk over a bridge to the beach. 

Monday, March 23, we took a walk in the morning and got a few things at Walgreens. Later we explored more of Delray Downtown where we had appetizers at The Wine and Spirits Kitchen and later had sushi at Lemongrass Asian Bistro. They have a thriving downtown with many events and we happened to be there when "Savor the Avenue" was happening. Several restaurants participated in hosting special menus and specially decorated long tables  they set up in front of their restaurants.  There were at least four city blocks of the longest community tables we have ever seen.   Delray Beach was another favorite town for us. I'm sure there will be more as our journey continues!