Key Largo and Islamorada

We went down to Key Largo to do some snorkeling and thought to share some of our photos with you. Of course Heinz and Frenchie were not along for the trip. We talked about that in our last post. They were parked in the garage that weekend. We missed them but we had a great time anyway.

We went out on a catamaran named Quicksilver. The boat takes a group out to two different coral reefs and you have about an hour or more in each spot. The waters in the keys are so blue and so warm. It is such a pleasure to be out in the ocean swimming with exotic fish. Wish we had an underwater camera along with us, but we didn’t think of that. I think they sell cheap ones to the tourists for just such an occasion.

We stayed at the Ramada, right at the little cove where all the fishing and diving and snorkeling boats are moored. Here is a photo of the hotel and the small harbor.

One cannot go to Key Largo without taking a photo of the African Queen from the Bogart movie. So here it is.

We toured the Key Largo Grande Resort and Beach Club and had dinner there. This is a view from the balcony at the restaurant. Spectacular place and they preserved so much of the natural vegetation. Here is a link if you want to see it. http://www.keylargoresort.com/?src=sl_keywestcom_mainlink It is truly a beautiful place and the website is great! You will need some big bucks if you want to stay there. In our next life!

We continued down South to Islamorada. A truly beautiful area. Here is a link for more info. http://fla-keys.com/islamorada/ where we visited the World Wide Sportsman store. It is like visiting a museum of everything fishing related. We could spend hours just looking at all the equipment. They also have a fascinating aquarium. "World Wide Sportsman was designated as a Certified Audubon International Signature Sanctuary on September 22, 1998 and celebrates over ten years of environmental stewardship and protection." For more information, go to: http://www.auduboninternational.org/

The wild birds are really beautiful and we were fascinated with this lovely white thief. I think it is a white heron. He had a brush of teal blue around the eyes that looked like he applied make up especially for this photo session. And he was quite tall when he decided to give it a stretch. He was hanging out in the bait room hoping to steal a little from an unsuspecting customer.

Could not resist taking this photo of a tired old pelican, hope he is retired, and a proud little sea gull. Since our knowledge of birds is limited, if we didn't call these guys right, feel free to let us know.

Hope you enjoyed this and that it gave you some inspiration to visit the Florida Keys.

Roaming The Canals

One of things we enjoy doing on the weekends is just taking off and roaming around the canals of our area. One can ride over a small bridge and voila there is a gorgeous big boat just sitting there.



There are many beautiful yachts like these.



And usually where you find boats one finds pelicans. These guys were just hanging around hoping someone would drop some fish on them. And someone usually does.

We were riding in an area called Harbor Beach, very upscale, when a guy steps out into the street and flags us down. We thought, oh no, he is probably going to give us some grief for riding on his street. But he wanted to let us know about a Vespa group here in South Florida called the Southeast Florida Scooters. He gave us their card and told us how to contact them. We talked a while and then he got back to his business of installing a window in a house and we got back to our scenic ride.

This is how strange life is. The next week we get an email from a lady who found our blog and wanted to invite us to the same Vespa group here in South Florida. She had actually seen us riding in Victoria Park, a lovely residential area of East Fort Lauderdale. Seems the club is really very organized and they do lots of social events. In case anyone local wants to get in touch with them here is the link to their Yahoo group.
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/SouthEastFloridaScooters/

They go on fairly long trips, in fact they were planning a trip to Key West. So we will check it out, but getting on any major highway on our scooters is not a choice we would make at this time. We just started riding in October of last year so we are pretty cautious. Don’t know how many of you have visited Florida, but voting is not the only thing we screw up. We have some of the worst drivers in the country.

The group meets frequently at a place called The Cove Restaurant and Marina in Deerfield Beach. It is a nice place, here is a link to the website. http://www.thecoverestaurant.com/

We ride up to Deerfield occasionally and in the past we have posted some nice beach shots from Deerfield Beach on our blog. So we plan to ride up there some weekend and see The Cove.

Peacocks Again

Last November we wrote about discovering some peacocks living right near downtown. We thought they were awesome. Then we found these beauties walking around in another neighborhood several miles north of downtown.

We were riding in an area called Wilton Manors when what do we see but peacocks. These guys were just amazing. They were right at home in this neighborhood. We laughed as they were strolling around visiting their neighbors, checking out the carport, looking in the glass doors, and parading on the patio among the plants. Nothing seemed to faze them. They ignored us, acted like we were not even there. These guys were used to being kings and queens of the hill.

South Fork Middle River runs along this particular neighborhood. In fact Wilton Manors is often called the Island City because it is surrounded and bordered by the North and South Forks of the Middle River. The landscaping here is quite beautiful and shows how the residents take pride in their homes.

The view up the river was so pretty as you can see in these photos. We parked at the end of one of the small streets which dead end at the river.

It was a great ending to a day of riding, very peaceful surroundings. We almost did not want to leave and go home. But the peacocks had already staked out their territory and we were only allowed to visit and look and take a few photos.

Our Friend and His Co Pilot

A few weeks ago we talked about our friend, Luciano, and his new scooter purchase. He bought a Roketa Maui 50GL. We were trying to help him out with the color, but as it turned out, the dealer only had blue so that solved that problem quickly. It is beautiful in blue!

How cute is his Co-Pilot, Isabella??

Luciano loves the new scooter and sent us these photos to share with everyone. He wrote that he was already thinking about upgrading to more power. We know how that is, because we spent a lot of time before making our decision. And even though we don't put the metal to the pedal, it is good to be able to keep up with the traffic and we like to have that extra pick up for taking off at an intersection.

Thanks Luciano for sending us the great pics. Anyone else out there is welcome to send some too. We enjoy hearing from fellow two wheelers.

15th Street Fisheries

Today we rode south just a bit and had lunch at the 15th Street Fisheries at Lauderdale Marina. It is an old established eatery located right on the Intracoastal Waterway. They have a website with their menus, check it out. http://www.15streetfisheries.com/index.html

People arrive by boat, personal water craft, and water taxi as well as cars and two wheels. We took a picture of someone’s Kymco scooter, brand new, nice silver one, with a case on the back that had a sticker saying Tow Away US so we think it probably belonged to one of the guys that worked for one of the many towing companies that park at the marina. We saw about a half dozen tow boats hanging around, guess they are waiting for someone to need their services.

Along with great food you can watch the boat traffic on the waterway, admire the mansions and the happenings at the marina.

The restaurant is quite large and has several unique areas. We ate at one of the outdoor patios. It has glass squares in the flooring so one can watch the fish swim under your feet. Pretty neat! And a wide open view of the Intracoastal waterway and the 17th Street Causeway bridge.

There are upstairs dining rooms that are more formal with great views of the Intracoastal. And a downstairs dining room as well as another outside patio dining area on the other side of the restaurant.

We started with an order of oysters on the half shell and have to say that they were some of the best we have had this season. Then we had grilled shrimp and lobster kabobs with small whole mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and pineapple pieces served over rice. Very tasty. Then we could not resist a chocolate torte for dessert. We are sure that we left there several pounds heavier, fortunately our Vespa 150’s had no trouble hauling us home.


Just outside the front entrance is a small fish pond with beautiful Japanese Koi fish. Some of them are quite large and so very colorful. We took a few photos of them.







This weekend we have a nice long 3 days so hopefully we can get some riding in. The weather is not too great in the afternoons so we try to ride in the mornings. Today we were lucky in that we got home right before 4PM and the bottom dropped out with thunder and lightening at 4. Talk about good timing.

First Dip of the Year

Wednesday of this past week we took off work early and went to the beach. It was our first dip of the season. We are wimps and wait for the water to warm up. It is rare that we make it into the ocean before May so we are pretty much on schedule. Also the summer months are wonderful at the beach as the snow birds are gone and there is plenty of sun, sand and surf for us regulars. It was absolutely perfect Wednesday. The tide was out so that meant that along the shore the shallow water was quite warm. One could walk way out into the ocean and still not have the water over your head. And the sun was nice and warm without being brutal. One of those days when we say to ourselves, “This is why we live in Florida”.

One of the fun things Wednesday was to watch the large pelican birds dive for fish. They are so beautiful and look like bomber planes zeroing in on a target. There must have been a lot of little fish swimming around as we did not see any larger ones, but the pelicans were all around and diving frequently. We kept hoping they would not mistake us for a big fish.

A friend of our just bought a new scooter, (Roketa Maui 50GL), and has already emailed us that he has put 70 miles in 4 days just running around in his neighborhood. I bet he thinks up errands to run so he can ride it. We were emailing back and forth for a week or more as he was trying to decide what to buy and then what color to get. It was funny because he wrote us to ask our opinion of the color. The choices were Red, Yellow, or Blue. Afraid our answer just made it more difficult. We told him that the blue one was very pretty, the red one was more orange, the yellow was nice and bright and the advantage of the red and yellow is that you would be more easily seen on the road. Poor Guy! Well it got settled by the dealer, as they only had blue in stock, so blue it was. The blue one was really the nicest of the colors so he lucked out.

For the past week or so when we finish tennis, there has been a silver Kymco People scooter parked next to us. We park near the bike racks so the poor bicycle riders are being crowded a bit. But we always park far enough away from the racks so we do leave them open for the cyclists. We usually play early at 7:45AM but today were playing at 9AM so up rides the Kymco at about the same time as us. We were happy to meet and exchange stories about our scooters. He had bought his scooter second hand from a lady that hardly rode it and had just had it serviced. It is a 2 stoke so he was telling us that it goes up to 42 miles per hour instead of the 30 plus with the 4 stroke machines. He said that comes in handy when he has to take a short strip of a busy road on the way to the tennis club.

Our scooters have attracted quite a bit of attention and the first question everyone asks is, “how many miles to the gallon?” When we tell them, we can see them calculating how much money they would save if they bought a scooter. We expect to see more scooters at the tennis club soon.

Demise of the Small Family Budget Hotels on Fort Lauderdale Beach

Beach front accommodations on Fort Lauderdale Beach are fast becoming Out-of-Price for the average family on vacation in our area.

For the past few years small economical family style lodging have been bulldozed in favor of luxury high rise hotels with nightly room rates in the thousand dollar bracket. And now two more small, moderate hotels, the Avalon and the Tropic Cay are going to bite the dust in the coming year. I guess the city approval has already been granted.

The Avalon is advertised as one of the Waterfront Inns and is situated right on A1A facing the Atlantic Ocean with a standard room going for $99. You can get a bigger room or a one bedroom suite for a little more, but you had better hurry as their appointment with the Wrecking Ball is eminent. This small hotel offers 70 uniquely decorated rooms in 4 different low rise buildings featuring relaxed antebellum décor.

The second upcoming fatality is the Tropic Cay, which sits right next door to the Avalon and offers a standard room for only $89. Guess they had the misfortune to be in the line of fire by being next to the Avalon, or maybe visa versa. There are a total of only 43 guest rooms in the two story hotel, so it would be hard to get lost there.

In place of the above two small hotels will be an ultra modern resort, 22 stories high and 30 stories long called the Ocean Wave. Here is an artist rendering of the proposed hotel.

On one side of the new resort is the 25 story Q Club Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort that just opened one year ago.

On the other side is the new 24-story Trump Tower, under construction and scheduled to open later this year or early next year.

Just down the beach about a block further is the new St Regis Resort. Any of these hotels will set you back a few k's in a short visit.

The biggest fiasco was the destruction of a historical hotel called the Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel to build a new luxury condo. It was Fort Lauderdale's first art deco hotel dating back to 1936 and was designed by Roy F. France, architect of over 40 Miami Beach art deco and postmodern hotels. A dozen of France's hotels have been demolished, but 20 still remain.

Thru herculean efforts by the historical society, the developer agreed to preserve the front façade of the hotel. The results is shown below and certainly does not resemble the historic little art hotel it once was.

And opening in October 2008 is the luxury W Hotel and Residences.

There are still a few, like maybe 4 small hotels left on the beach, otherwise you have to go back a few blocks to find something decent for a moderate price.

One of the survivors is the Sea Club Hotel on the Fort Lauderdale Beach. It has a cute, open 2nd floor deck facing the ocean, where one can have a drink or eat a bite and watch the beach happenings.

There are others that will have to wait for another day and another post.