West Marine Superstore Opens In Fort Lauderdale

This week West Marine opened their first "Superstore" in Fort Lauderdale which at 50,000 square feet is twice as large at their 25,000 square foot "Flagship" store. They plan on carrying over 35,000 items in stock which is about double the number of items found in their Flagship stores. What I saw certainly boggled my mind and put a small dent in my wallet!



When you first walk into the store the first thing that grabs your attention is the gargantuan flying bridge custom fabricated and installed by 20 people from Hargrave in about 2 weeks.



On top of the flying bridge you find a real radar arch with a live thermal imaging camera you can control at one of he displays. The radars are spinning although I did not find their displays among the many that were lit up like Christmas trees all over the place.



To the right of the entrance your eye is caught by a large school of game fish swimming overhead!



To the left of the main entrance is the Megayacht Supply Department where the anchors and fenders are larger than the sales folks.

Electronics Galore!

Here are some more pics of the new store. Thankfully I got out with only spending a little over $200 on a new diving mask and snorkle, a pair of Costa Del Mar sunglasses, and a couple of hard to find superyacht magazines! That was pretty hard to do considering all the supercool electronics within the reach of my grubby little hands.

For a minute I thought I was lost in the car stereo department of some big box store. No, in the first picture everything you see is all marine stereo equipment!

All of the equipment in these shots is built in underneath the huge flying bridge.

They Have It All!

The electronics display that was getting the most attention was the Boat Drive Simulator that lets you control your dual engine vessel with the steering wheel and dual throttles with an array of navigation equipment to aid you. Each display was synced with the graphic of the boat moving through the water so just like in real life you could navigate your way through in this case New York harbor. Nevertheless I managed to go aground when I first took over the wheel! There was a mirror display with all Garmin equipment on the backside of Raymarine's.



After you pick up all the electronic gadgets you need to safely get you to your favorite fishing grounds you will need some tackle to catch that really big one. So I asked the bait girl behind the counter to show me her biggest and her best. With a reel like this how can you possibly go wrong?



And then of course you are going to need a rod to go with that big reel. You will have no trouble finding just the right one among those on display. And if you don't see what you like here there is another gondola of rods on the other side of the reel hut.



While you are taking care of business catching all those big wahoo if you need to take care of another kind of business while out to sea just take a look at all the thrones you have to choose from here.



And if you can't find what you are looking for in the first row move on to the second row of johns on display where the really fancy ones come with their own TV.

You won't need no stinkin magazines on this boat!

In The Venice of America

Sorry, 2401 S. Andrews Avenue, or on the SW corner of the intersection of State Road 84, aka Marina Mile, and South Andrews Avenue, just South of downtown Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Venice of America.

Nah, just an old retired guy who has no boat having fun with his camera!

If there's no boat show to go to the grand opening of a boat toy Superstore is the next best thing.

Sorry, she turned me down.

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