Chapter 686

Mar 1-8, 2025

Pompano Beach 2025

another day in paradise

Link to Pompano 2025 photos 

First - our vacation was wonderful as always, but I like to cover a variety of topics. The development of Florida has been ongoing for a century. The coastline is dotted with large condominiums. Our spot along the beach is perhaps as low key as it gets for hundreds of miles, yet there is encroachment of higher intensity use of space. 

Tear it down and build back bigger and better. That's the theme for Florida. Sometimes it's because the government wont let a homeowner rebuild after a hurricane unless it meets new code standards. Sometimes a millionaire just wants to tear down a multimillion dollar perfectly fine property and make it better as in Fort Lauderdale where we viewed many of those situations from the water taxi boat ride.

Our (Colleen's) Seaside Beach time share is behind the dozen people on the beach in photo above. We owners collectively voted to not sell out to developers (so far). Construction has not begun for the ten story Ocean580 condo projected in the center here right next to us (left). They are still in the permitting stage but have begun accepting sales for 17 large units priced beginning at $7 million each. It's being developed by Canada's second wealthiest Indian, billionaire Bill Malhotra . A civil engineer came to north america in the 70's as a 22 year old, it couda been me.

The Ocean Six Terraces has been sold out at $5 million for each unit (further left) and some residents are living there.  A 70 year old two story house with a quarter acre lot (two doors to our right) at 408 Briny Ave is now listed for sale at $6.5 million.  It may seem like it would result in more people traffic, but in reality there will be fewer owners of larger and more expensive units. These wealthy owners hardly ever use their properties so the end result could be less congestion.

Another new construction began for Solato, just to the right and across the street. They are accepting sales for $3-$5 million per unit. It was surprisingly quiet for so much going on there. I noticed the large concrete pouring hand operated bucket and pneumatic system familiar from my highway construction days.

The city of Pompano Beach has hundreds of projects ongoing with billions invested.

A favorite youtuber of mine did a real entertaining and informative video about the construction around Miami. The developers feel it is about to boom with more cranes than the whole state of California.

It was an extremely windy day on Tuesday so we went up to the kite boarding beach for some exhiliration. We sat with these old dudes as they discussed their strategies. You could hear the French Canadian and spanish accents. Following them up the beach I thought they were adding to the challenging difficulty by entering near the dangerous breakwater inlet at Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse, but they said it was easier here. I guess due to the more slack wave action.

The near guy struggled for 15 minutes to just get on his board and right the wing. He had a 5 minute ride before getting dumped. See photo album. It's a full body workout and many have mastered long rides up and down the beach.

Only the bottom  of the surf board is visible near the lighthouse as the guy was flying high standing behind the board with the air foil  wing way higher above the photo attached with strings.

I would have thought it was too rough to even attempt doing this but many were  doing just that. It was a serious workout for us just to trudge through the sand against the wind starting down near the high rises.

Happy Hour is everywhere in Florida. Yes, we enjoy that. Our favorite spot is the Foundry.  Jamil is our favorite waiter and he is always (sometimes) glad to see us tourists. It's walking distance from our studio apartment about a half mile just across the Intracoastal waterway. Margaritas and Coconut shrimp was the best choice but of course, we had to sample all the other venues. 

We always enjoy the free stroll around the boardwalk of the Wadakohatchee Wetlands. You can virtually reach out and touch the nesting Wood Storks and Egrets. Also did the Green Cay Wetlands also in Palm Beach County. It was convenient on our way to Boynton Beach and the Two Georges Restaurant. We met up with college buddy George Ranta and Jo Ann to share some Swordfish, Grouper and fish fry. George bought a house in Palm City three years ago, not been in Ocean yet ! But they did do 9 holes of golf that morning.

We did do Spring Break on Fort Lauderdale Beach by accident. Colleen wanted to go to the boring Hugh Birch State Park and the infamous Elbo Room was right near by. Parked for just one hour to exit before the loud music & chaos got on my nerves. Yes we were on the live web cam in case you tuned in. They were giving out free energy drinks on the beach so we partook.

Believe roommate and I made it that far down on a summer road trip 1966.

Speaking of loud obnoxious sounds, there are mucho aggravations in Florida. Anytime you leave your room for 20 minutes and enter the streets you will be aggravated. It might be the tourists walking all over the street every which way, or the cars beeping for you to move quicker or them zooming around like nascar.

The worst offenders are the novelty electric vehicles. It might be dark and you are walking across the pedestrian sidewalk of the bridge and all of a sudden a jerk on a scooter or uniwheel zooms by your elbow at 30 mph. They are "not allowed" on the sidewalks but they do it. There seem to be all manner of vehicles going in all sorts of directions piloted by kids and senior citizens.

Just as we left 2 different hit and runs killed seniors in the cross walks. A drunk North Carolina repeat offender lady ran over a couple right in front of our Briny Irish Pub and fled. We probably walked thru that spot a dozen times. We spoke with this witness, Rosario Troia and ate at his Coluccis Restaurant several times. A few miles away 24 year old Ken'yatta Baez driving a high powered Dodge Charger ran over and killed a 79 yr old male  and left the scene.

Be careful out there while you are having fun.