Following the Miami Boat Show the Florida Powerboat Clubs Miami Boat Show Poker Run is one of those events that you must do if you are a real Powerboating enthusiast. I have been doing this Poker Run since 2006 and this 18th year for the club was the best one ever. Beginning with perfect weather conditions we left The Biscayne Bay Marriott on time Thursday morning with about 60 other boats broken into three running groups and had a beautiful run south to Islamorada with the regular lunch stop at Gilberts resort on key Largo.
On Friday a small group of us including Craig and Nancy with their 38 Cigarette “Old School”, Bill Robbins with his 40 Nor-Tech Roadster and the new M41 DCB ran north back to Gilberts to meet up with Fridays group of about 16 additional boats for the rest of the run back to Islamorada. The run back down was even better with fewer boats and we got more helicopter time for what we hope are great videos and pictures.
Saturday came and what I estimated to be about 50 boats all headed out with us to a simple raft up party about 10 miles south of Islamorada, at the Channel Marker 5 Bridge. I have not had this much fun with a great group of people in a very long time. The music blared until we killed the batteries on the boat and everyone had a great time. The boat count was so large there were four separate raft ups in the shallow area near a sand beach.
Stu flew the Helicopter again and a few boats put on a show doing fly bys, off the beach. Particularly cool were the 28 and 32 Outboard Skaters and a couple of STV’s that managed their way down with the rest of us. We fired the PowerboatNation.com T-Shirt cannon and gave away our t-shirts to as many as we could.
This on water camaraderie and fun is really what this is all about, powerboating enthusiasts using their boats and hanging out together. No keyboard warriors or wannabes at this raft up. There were brand new million dollar rings tied up to older smaller boats and no one cared. The new boats, old boats, big and small we were all the same on the sand bar at the same time having the same fun and it was outstanding. A special thank you to “SPICY” for letting me use a battery to get fired back up to get home fast and a special thanks to Stu and Jacky of the Florida Powerboat Club for putting it all together and giving us all a excuse to play.
