Lisa made me promise we’d stop in Fort Lauderdale for a week, so after staying in Homestead for two nights to catch up on work and other chores, here we are putting the boat in the water right at Cooley’s Landing Marina (below), on the New River at the beginning of the downtown Riverwalk area. Cooley’s is one of our favorite marinas in Florida. Nice facilities and location. We can walk to shop in Las Olas, eat out at a choice of restaurants, grocery shop, or get plenty of exercise walking right along the river.

Lisa always raves about Cooley’s laundry facilities which are more like a laundromat, with lots of room to sort, wash and fold. The two times we crossed over to the Abaco Islands, in 2006 and 2009, we stayed at Cooley’s, provisioning and cleaning all our clothes and linens because it would be expensive to buy food and wash laundry while staying in the islands.

Part of the docks at Cooley’s are on the other side of this bridge (above-right), this is where Kismet is headed to in that photo. Below is our slip overlooking the bridge.

The Jungle Queen (above) went up and downriver behind our boat several times a day.

We happened to be here Easter Sunday and apparently, people like to decorate their boats with easter stuff and parade on New River.

A must-visit restaurant for us when in Fort Lauderdale is Jenkin’s Bar-B-Q. Not much to look at but, in our opinion, it is the best BBQ around.

On the docks next to the marina, we happened upon this very new Ranger Tug R27, just like ours.

New River is a fun place to be for us because all day long yachts, like the one below, cruise past the back of our boat. There is a big shipyard further up the river and a lot of these boats dock there when they’re not out yachting.

If you need fuel anywhere on the New River, this boat will help you out, coming right to your boat to fill your tank.

We thought this was interesting, this couple was paddle boarding upriver collecting garbage out of the water. On the end of their sticks were little baskets they used to scoop up debris to deposit in the baskets on the front of their boards. Interesting.

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