Little Havana and mojitos

February 27, 2022

Great day! We left the marina early this morning and fought our way through 6 bridge lifts in one hour. We only missed one bridge but that was because one bridge operator lifted late in order to accommodate a sailboat that wanted to go through too. That 6 minutes of delayed opening messed up our timing for the next bridge. No biggie. We arrived at Venetian Marina about 1pm. The dock master tried to put us in a 15' slip and the boat is 16' wide so we moved to a little bit bigger spot. Yay, we made it. David found a dog park and it was a short walk for all of us. Ellie wasn't interested in playing with the other dogs, she just wants to play with her toy. The first time I threw it, some little punk dog snatched it away from her and then did laps around her for about 10 mins. Punk dog's dad was on the phone and ignored his little darling. At minute 11, I started chasing the Punk and got Dad's attention. After 2-3 more mins Dad finally got it away from him. Ellie was not happy about the theft! Punk finally left and we got to throw her frisbee toy. She tires out pretty fast, age and a little extra weight slows her down. We came back to the boat, dodging the crazies (homeless guys) and Ellie finally caught her breath and laid down for a snooze. We got an Uber to Little Havana. It was like a different country. The music was blaring the best Cuban music! While wandering around, we found the dominos club. It is an outdoor covered arena with lots of tables for 4 men and all were concentrating on the game. This was serious business! THEN...we found this Cuban restaurant, oh my gosh, amazing food and they had their own resident chicken that was working the crowd. The back patio where we ate looked like a postcard, it was a perfect setting. We got an Uber back to the boat just in time to watch the big cruise ships leave port. David found a Miami cam and we were able to watch them leave on our TV. When you see the picture, our marina would be at the bottom left of the screen if it was zoomed out more. We had a wonderful day and feel so lucky to be doing this boating phase of our lives. Today we went from Ft Lauderdale to Miami, 20 long miles, 4 hours. The water temp is up to 77 degrees, the air temperature was 82 & 63%.

Cute little white sand beach

Church

Oops, didn't know I was supposed to pay to take a pic

Calle Ocho, Little Havana

Blue dots are all the cruise ships in the area

Cool tree doing it's best to grow

Side of the McDonald's building

Everything is so colorful!

Tile mosaic on McDonald's building

More of the McDonald's graphics

David reading the history on the building

Food vendor

Restaurant bar assembly line for mojitos, we had a coconut one, a passion fruit one and a mango mojito. All of them were very yummy

Patio of the Restaurant

Cuban bread and an ashtray on every table

More patio views

Great tree and fountain

Staghorn ferns growing in the patio's trees

Mojitos, plural

The light above our table

Vaca Frita, crispy shredded flank steak, finished with garlic adobo and onions. Freaking Amazing!!!

Enchilado de Shrimp creole. Shrimp stewed in a homemade sofrito, bell peppers, onion. clam juice and wine. Side of plantains and black rice and bean. Oh my!!!