SeaEscape cruises into Florida sunset with no return as onshore gambling evolves

 

By Jane Feehan

As Florida voters rejected gambling casinos, one-day cruises for betting grew in popularity during the 1980s and 90s.

One of these ocean-going casinos was SeaEscape. Over several decades, operators of the line changed, ships changed and so did home ports. This post is not a business history of the SeaEscape; it’s somewhat convoluted.  The focus will be on growth of the industry, its challenges and the role legalized gambling played with SeaEscape’s fortunes.

They advertised as “Florida’s original one-day cruise.” SeaEscape launched in 1982 from the Port of Palm Beach. Some news sources report that the “Rahn family” was behind the new business; other news sources report Scandinavian Sun or Scandinavian World Cruises was behind the initiative. The ship’s maiden voyage hosted 732 passengers. 

The line, which promised “everything for $89,” included a stop in Freeport, Bahamas, a meal, and lots of gambling. In subsequent years, their ships mostly sailed without a port stop but to international waters (or three miles offshore) where there were no restrictions on betting. SeaEscape ships also departed from Miami and Fort Lauderdale; soon after these one-day trips sailed from Tampa and Port Canaveral.  

By 1992 ocean-going casinos hosted 920,000 passengers yearly (averaging 1,400 guests per trip)—"one third of SOFLA’s cruise trade,” reported the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Passengers on these trips were not big-time gamblers. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, most spent an average of $9-$13 a day and slots were the main attraction—80 percent played the “one-arm bandits.”  Remaining passengers played table games. Betting limits ranged from $200-$2,000, not attractive to high rollers who preferred Las Vegas.

However, the concept was so popular and seemed to hold so much promise that the report of 920,000 passengers caught the attention of Steve Wynn, then-owner of the Mirage Hotel and Golden Nugget Casinos in Las Vegas. The gambling mogul mulled over the idea of building a casino ship and "fancy" hotel in Port Everglades. He probably foresaw the eventual approval of casino gambling so did not move forward with his concept.

Competition was stiff by 1992. At one time, 47 floating casinos operated from Florida. Meanwhile, troubles mounted for SeaEscape. The company, no longer held by the original owners, filed for bankruptcy in 1991. They had been dealing with competition, late or unpaid fines, port fees, taxes and insurance problems.  Several small fires at sea called into question the validity of their insurance. At that time, Fort Lauderdale and Miami were claimed as home ports.

In 1997, the “New SeaEscape” emerged, announcing new ships, sea “adventures” for $29.95 and party cruises for about $25. But new problems arose the following year when Florida’s Attorney General Bob Butterworth spearheaded efforts to curtail questionable one-day cruise practices. Undercover agents boarded ships to confirm gambling did not begin until at least three miles from the coast. Hidden GPS devices proved otherwise; the New SeaEscape was hit with a $190,000 fine for opening slots and tables before the three miles. Other problems followed with indictments in 2003 of the then-owners for matters unrelated to New SeaEscape.

The company struggled. They advertised their remaining ship as a wedding venue, for overnight New Year’s Eve festivities for $179 and other parties for as little as $25. Gambling glories were slipping away.

SeaEscape’s last cruise was in August 2008 after workers complained about not being paid. The company was unable to find financing or a new owner. Their sole ship was auctioned off by Broward County in October 2008. The highest bidder was investor Glenn Staub.

Gambling—blackjack—was approved in 2008. Casino gambling has been approved in bits and pieces since 1988 until today, when most of it resides on Seminole holdings such as Hard Rock Cafes in Hollywood and Tampa and at the Miccosukee Reservation. The next frontier seems to be online gambling.

But it wasn’t just onshore gambling that dealt the one-day cruises a blow. The rise of inexpensive vacation cruises with casinos as one form of onboard entertainment also played a role in the demise of day trips.  Entertainment venues and peoples’ tastes evolve.

As of this post, a one-day gambling trip is offered out of Port Canaveral:  Victory Casino Cruises.

 Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 21, 1982

Fort Lauderdale News, March 17, 1982

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Sept 15, 1982

South Florida Sun-SentinelS, Jun. 2, 1991

The Miami Herald, Oct. 21, 1991

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, May 17, 1992

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 15, 1993

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Mar. 23, 1997

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 19, 1997

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 20, 1997

South Florida Sun-Sentinel. June 5, 2003

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Aug. 12, 2008

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Oct. 7, 2008

Tags: SeaEscape, New SeaEscape, one-day gambling cruises, gambling history, Port Everglades, floating casinos

A Civil War hero and once resident of Fort Lauderdale, Edgar A Bras and his Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor, U.S. Army
Public domain

 

By Jane Feehan

Civil War veteran Edgar A. Bras (1841-1923) made his way to Fort Lauderdale in the 1900s. Approaching their final years, Bras and his wife moved in with their daughter Ethel and her husband, Herbert Otto.

Bras was a carpenter and farmer for most of his life. The Iowa native and his family moved to Kansas, then Nebraska and to Oklahoma. Fort Lauderdale was his final chapter, a quiet one but not far removed from the way he lived his life as a young man.  

No doubt, there were probably a few Civil War vets in Broward County during the 1900s. Bras was not only a vet of that conflict but also recipient of the Medal of Honor for his act of valor during the Battle of Spanish Fort in Mobile, Alabama. The action is listed as “Capture of Flag” On April 8, 1865.  

His military career was nothing if not one of dogged determination. It began when Bras, then 20, signed up with the 8^th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, U.S Army in Sept. 1861, about five months after the conflict erupted. He was promoted a few months later to Fifth Corporal.

Bras fought in the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee (April 6-7, 1862) where he was shot in the upper thigh; the bullet remained there for the rest of his life. He was wounded again during the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi (April 29-May 30, 1862) where a bullet hit him in the head, lodging behind his left eye. He recovered (bullet removed?) and was promoted to Fourth Corporal in September 1862. When his term of service ended, he immediately signed up again, Jan. 11, 1864, with the same regiment and was again promoted, this time to First Sargeant. There were more battles to fight.

Mobile, Alabama was a port critical to Confederate supply lines and a favorite of Southern blockade runners. General R.S. Canby led Union forces into the Battle of Spanish Fort with an eye on capturing Mobile. Edgar Bras bravely charged through a Confederate camp at the fort and was able to capture the Confederate flag from a color bearer on April 8^th, 1865. For this action, he was commended and received the Medal of Honor. Mobile was not captured but Spanish Fort was rendered useless by Union forces.

The war ended April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. President Andrew Johnson declared it officially over Aug. 20, 1866. The Medal of Honor was first available to Marines and those in the Navy in 1861; it was extended to the Army in 1862.

It appears that sense of duty never left Edgar Bras. While in Fort Lauderdale, approaching 80, he served as deacon and superintendent of Sunday school at First Baptist Church. He died in 1923 at 81, a few years after his wife. The final resting place for both is at Evergreen Cemetery. 

 Among the countless others to honor on Memorial Day are Edgar A. Bras and Alexander R. (Sandy) Nininger, both Medal of Honor recipients who lived in Fort Lauderdale. According to the National Medal of Honor Museum, “of the 40 million Americans who have served in the Armed Forces since the Civil War, only 3,519 have earned the Medal of Honor”

Medal of Honor, U.S. Army
Public domain

 Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

mohmuseum.org/the-medal/

ancestry.familysearch.org

iowasuvcw.org/monuments-in-the-state-of-alabama

IowaHistory.org

www.cmohs.org/

victoriacrossonline.co.uk/edgar-a-bras-moh/

Tags: Edgar A. Bras, Medal of Honor recipients – Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, Evergreen Cemetery, Sandy Nininger

Eyes were on Lemon City before Miami

Bay View Hotel, second on Biscayne Bay. Lemon City 1892,
Moved to Miami 1899 via barge
State Archives of Florida

By Jane Feehan

Lemon City didn’t have its own government but did have plenty of economic clout in early South Florida. It was older than Miami, with settlers arriving in the 1850s and in significant numbers in the 1870s. Historians suggest first settlers were English descendants in the Bahamas referred to as “Conchs;” they had also found their way to the Keys. 

Geography usually determines city growth; this community sat at the only deep-water access or Biscayne Bay at the time, near today’s 61st Street. The port, though not a port of entry, provided shipping access for crops and a pipeline of supplies for settlers. The little settlement also sat near Little River, Arch Creek and Snake Creek, waterways that facilitated transportation. 

Many pioneers came to this area to stake a claim for land after the Homestead Act of 1862. They settled the area to farm, as did many who arrived in Florida in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Enterprising arrivals parceled land for real estate sales, which proved to be profitable.

James E. Ingraham, then president of South Florida Railroad and later associate of Henry Flagler, visited Lemon City in 1892. He was on an expedition from Fort Myers through the Everglades to assess agricultural opportunities. That the expedition included Lemon City suggests the growing importance of the community. This predated his fateful trip in 1895 to Miami where he met Julia Tuttle to talk about extending Flagler’s railway there after the freeze destroyed crops in mid- and northern Florida. 

Guy Metcalf, pioneer, newspaperman and cousin of Fort Lauderdale's founder Frank Stranahan, also recognized the growing importance of Lemon City. He owned a real estate company that built a rock road to Lemon City from Lantana during the late 1880s or 1890s.

Named Lemon City for the lemons that grew there, the settlement was first mentioned in Dade County public records in 1889. When residents wanted a post office soon after, they applied with the federal government under the name “Motlo” in honor of a Seminole chief. The government approved the post office but sent back the paperwork with the name Motto. Residents briefly referred to their new town as that, but by 1893 resumed calling it Lemon City.

It may not have been an official town, but Lemon City was often noted in the social columns of The Miami News and The Miami Herald commencing in 1904. Comfortable homes were built as well as schools and several businesses, including a sawmill, an oil company and reportedly one of the largest asphalt companies in the South. The community attracted winter visitors and eventually hosted tent camps for tourists.

A.B Hurst Sawmill,
1909 Lemon City
State Archives of Florida

Lemon City could also boast an active community improvement association, which promoted the building of schools and a library. The Lemon City Library reportedly first opened in 1892. It is recognized today as the oldest operating branch library in Miami-Dade County. Historian Ron Blazek wrote that Coconut Grove was first to open a library but issues surrounding definition of a public library obfuscate claims of “first.” This writer found public notices in The Miami News in October 1904 for the formation of the Lemon City Library Association.

Lemon City was eventually overshadowed by Miami’s growth after Henry Flagler extended his Florida East Coast Railway to Miami 1896. Lemon City faded in status and was annexed by the city of Miami, along with Coconut Grove and other small communities in 1925.

Today, Lemon City boundaries overlap those of Miami. Known as Little Haiti since the 1970s with its new immigrants, it was recognized in 2016 as an official neighborhood of Miami. The neighborhood is home to nearly 30,000 residents from Haiti and other islands in the Caribbean. Today they celebrate cultural distinctions in food and art and language.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

 Tags: Lemon City, Little Haiti, Miami in the 1800s, Miami in the 1920s

Sources:

The Miami News, Oct. 1, 1904

The Herald, June 14, 1925

Blazek, Ron. Tequesta: Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, No. 42, 1982

University of Florida, The Ingraham Expedition, 2015. https://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/ingraham/expedition/LemonCity.htm

Florida International University, City of Miami Planning Dept., Historic Lemon City/ Little Haiti/  Creole District

McIver, Stuart. Glimpses of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988.

Wikipedia

A.B. Hurst Sawmill: http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/141893

Bay View Hotel: http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/118340

Unconventional golf coach teaches his children the game and how to win

L to R: Paula, Julian, Emma, Kevin

 

By Jane Feehan

Most who seek a professional career in golf started out using a coach. Some have been coached by parents who were pros. Athletes in other sports have also been trained by family members with skills and experience. Boca Raton resident Kevin Andrews has neither skills nor experience in golf but has successfully coached his children Emma,14 and Julian, 11.

It all started four years ago. Emma already played hockey at school; Julian played soccer. During the COVID pandemic, Kevin’s sports focus was redirected inward. What game could involve the entire family?

“A friend suggested we visit Top Golf,” said Paula Andrews, wife and mother. They went to the high-tech complex to familiarize the children with the game; they left as golf enthusiasts.

Kevin moved ahead and bought a set of used clubs for Emma and Julian. He looked into hiring a coach or buying lessons. It was expensive. Multi-day golf schools can cost thousands. Individual hourly lessons top $100 . Not deterred, he attended local golf events, including an LPGA tourney with the family to get a better feel for the sport.

“I got close to coaches so I could hear their instructions to players,” said Kevin who had already dismissed paying for instruction. He knew he’d need more information. He looked at You Tube videos and got a better understanding of what coaching entailed. He bought books. Then the family visited a golf shop at a public course in Lake Worth where a golf pro encouraged them to get Emma and Julian signed up for tournaments to play with those their age and skill level.

“But no one wants to play with beginners,” said Kevin. They had to start somewhere. He put the kids through drills at home and on a local course. Pressure was building to up his coaching abilities. “I can do this,” he thought. “But I wasn’t sure how to proceed.”

Proceed he did but in an unconventional way.

Kevin is an industrial engineer. Industrial engineers are methodical. They analyze parts of processes, or systems to make things work or to build products.

“When I understood how complex the swing is, I broke it down into parts—feet, knees, hips, elbows hands and head,” Kevin recounted. He started with the hands—the grip. Kevin took videos of Emma and Julian as they swung their clubs. Post-practice analysis helped correct mistakes, build up their strengths and strategize their wins by assessing course risks.

“It’s also a head game,” said Kevin. “So, I read Alter Ego: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life (by Todd Herman, HarperCollins 2019). “It really helped Emma get out of her head while playing in a tournament.”

Emma

Tournament is now a household activity. Four years later, Emma and Julian are solid competitors in their age group. At times they beat older players. Paula drives them to a course to practice five or six days a week. Kevin joins them after work.

“I’m good at driving the ball,” said Julian who ranks recess as his favorite part of school.

Emma, who hopes to be awarded a golf scholarship for college, visualizes herself as a golf pro one day.  “Putting is my strength,” she acknowledged.

These young golfers put their golfing strengths to work as members of Gold Coast Junior Golf Foundation (www.gcjgf.org). The Boca Raton-based nonprofit provides opportunities and scholarships for young golfers under age 19. Young golfers participate in monthly tournaments throughout South Florida. Once a year the organization recognizes players with an awards event at a golf club. Founder and former golf pro Wayne McKinney pays for the food, golf carts and trophies while sharing stories of his golfing days.

This year, Emma and Julian received trophies for playing in every tourney, scoring wins and maintaining good grades at school.

Today, Emma plays on her high school golf team while eyeing the next tournament. Julian likes driving the ball and beating older kids at the game even more than school recess.  Paula, head cheerleader, and Kevin walk each 18-hole course as the kids play in a monthly tournament. Kevin remains their winning coach.

Julian

“I like to follow the advice given in a book I read that helps me coach and the kids play,” said Kevin.

‘If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done.’ (From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad, by James Clear, Penguin Random House 2018.)

There’s probably something else that no book can offer: the confidence, determination, and love only a parent can share with a child aspiring to be a competitor in sports. It’s a huge win.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Faces of Florida, Golf

Mark 2100 Resort Hotel in Fort Lauderdale and an owner who left a gift for average students

 

By Jane Feehan 

The Mark 2100 Resort Hotel was one of a very few that sat directly on Fort Lauderdale’s sands. For more than three decades it attracted guests from across the nation to its unpretentious accommodations. 

Locals probably miss this hotel for its Mark 2100 Ocean Lounge. Live jazz, a great bar and wooden deck provided a getaway, if only for a few hours while sipping a drink or two. The view of a moonlit ocean and sound of soft breezes rustling through the palm trees was unmatched along the hotel strip. 

The beach vibe probably attracted Pennsylvania native Edward W. Seese who retired to Florida during the late 1950s after a career in marketing. He and brother Worthington F. Seese published an intent to do business as Mark 2100 Motor Hotel in January 1960.

Located at 2100 N. Atlantic Boulevard, east of A1A, at the northern end of Fort Lauderdale’s hotel strip, Mark 2100 offered 47 rooms and apartments casually sprawled along a block. Room televisions, a heated pool, coffee shop and direct beach access were the advertised amenities. Wells M. Squier of Squier and Maxwell designed its interior. This then-popular firm had also designed interiors of several Fort Lauderdale hotels including Stouffer’s Anacapri Inn, the Jules Verne Room at the Marlin Beach Hotel, the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel and later (1965) the Fountainhead Condominium north of the Galt Mile..

In 1961, Mark 2100 became a member of Quality Courts United, Inc., the largest association of its kind and first hotel chain (now Choice Hotels) in the U.S.; it was a marketing cooperative set up to refer business to other members offering the same standards in accommodations and service. Stouffer’s Anacapri Inn in Fort Lauderdale joined Quality Courts the same month.   

With its reputation established, and by word of mouth, Mark 2100 successfully operated for decades. Seese also developed—as well as managed—the Sea Garden in Pompano Beach. Management of the Mark 2100 was turned over to Ruth Werth while Seese worked the Pompano hotel.

Edward Seese died in March 1995. He left much more than his hotels as legacy. Seese served as director of Florida Hotel and Motel Association and headed several other local hotel-oriented organizations. But what many would remember him for was the $4.5 million gift he bequeathed to Broward Community College to help average or C students. He believed they could achieve more in their academic pursuits if they didn’t have to worry about a job to finance their education. This gift made headlines beyond the South Florida media market.

Seese’s brother, Worthington, died about three months later. His wife Ida predeceased Edward some time in the 1960s. They had no children. Of note, Seese had worked for Philadelphia Electric in marketing and later as producer and host of the first day time television show in the Philadelphia market.

Epilogue

The Mark 2100 was still operating in 1994. By 1995 it closed or was about to when plans to build the two-tower, 30-story Palms Condominium went up for approval by the city commission. Residents resisted the development. The plan was to close part of North Atlantic Boulevard to accommodate the project and they didn’t want to lose direct access to the beach. Residents’ efforts to stop the project proved fruitless. The Palms was completed about 2001.

The Mark 2100 was the first of several small hotels and motels in that area to fall to developers. The glitzy Palms, spectacular Auberge Beach Residences and beautiful Pelican Resort now sit on those serene sands.

They say you can’t go home again...but one can always take a trip down memory lane.

 Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

 Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 15, 1960

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 1, 1961

Fort Lauderdale News, May 9, 1961

Fort Lauderdale News, June 8, 1962

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 13, 1963

South Florida Sun Sentinel, May 18, 1994

South Florida Sun Sentinel, March 22, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, June 19, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, June 25, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sept. 20, 1995

South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sept. 25, 2021

Choice Hotels

Tags: Mark 2100 Resort Hotel, Fort Lauderdale hotel history, Edward W. Seese

Sunny Isles, a tropical wonderland develops into a wall of condos north of Miami Beach

 

Sunny Isles 1945,
Florida StateArchives

By Jane Feehan

Advertisements for lot sales in Sunny Isles first hyped it as “the America Riviera.”  In 1930, the project was touted as the “Venice of America.” Perhaps Harvey B. Graves, buyer of 2,300 acres north of Miami Beach didn’t know it was the moniker Fort Lauderdale adopted when the finger islands off Las Olas Boulevard were dredged in 1923.

But no one would have blamed Graves for using the Venice description. His vision was influenced by the same person as were the Fort Lauderdale developers: Carl Fisher. The Indiana native worked magic carving a resort city out of Miami mangroves.

Graves, a semi-retired, highly successful furniture company owner with stores north of New York City, first came to Miami Beach for winter visits in 1918.  While there, he took leisurely boat excursions up the inland waterway (then known as the Florida Intracoastal) to the northern part of Biscayne Bay. He traveled to Snake Creek, which emptied into the Florida East Coast Canal, Oleta River (where a state park sits today), and to Dumfoundling Bay near today’s Aventura. He believed the little islands –mostly mangroves—could be connected by a series of coral rock bridges to provide an idyllic setting for winter visitors seeking a sunny alternative to the northern cold. 

Graves purchased about 1,500 acres from the Model Land Company in 1921 and formed the Sunny Isles Improvement Company, with construction to begin the following year. He expanded his holdings to 2,300 acres from the northern end of Biscayne Bay. It was bordered by Fulford Road in the village of Fulford, east of Dixie Highway and north of Ojus. His project also included ocean front acreage at “the terminus of the beach road.” (State Road 270, later Florida State Road A1A, went through Sunny Isles in the 1940s.)

Prospective buyers were encouraged to view the development where every home “would have a water view.”  Tropical landscapes made it “camera land.” Names given some of the 70 isles included the Atlantic, Summerhouse, Palm, and Garden islands. Utilities, such as a water and electricity were installed and the project took off ... slowly, but a few high-profile buyers were interested.

Coconut Grove winter resident William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state purchased a lot for development in Sunny Isles in 1923 for $9,750. He died in 1925, not long after arguing for the prosecution in the famed Scopes Monkey Trial. The lot was probably sold shortly after because the Jennings home remained in the Grove. Another lot—100 ft by 210 ft— was advertised for $5,750 or 27 cents per square foot in 1923.

Per the purchase agreement with the Tatum family, the original property owners, Graves built a beach casino (what bath houses were called then) in 1923 for $65,000; It was later part of the site of a pier (Newport Fishing Pier today) and hotel. Development of Sunny Isles may have been hindered by difficulties accessing the area. It was essentially an island until the Haulover inlet was carved out and the first of several iterations of a bridge were built in 1925. The Great Hurricane of 1926 also slowed sales. The tract became part of North Miami Beach in 1931.

Harvey Graves died in Rochester, NY at 80 years of age Jan. 14, 1936. His Florida dream community was sold to Wisconsin industrialist Kurtis R. Froedtert for a reported $1 million in the summer of 1936. Froedtert advertised in 1937 he was building 30 homes there. News about Sunny Isles in the  1940s centered on fishing stories at the pier.

"Venice of America"

During the 1950s and 60s, Sunny Isles Beach was developed for the burgeoning Florida hospitality industry. Sunny Isles touted its Motel Row, where 30 motels such as the Castaways, Dunes, Thunderbird and Sun City drew tourist families from all over the nation looking for cheaper hotel rooms than those in Miami Beach (search this blog for “Luxury, Kitsch and Convenience”).

Sunny Isles was incorporated as Sunny Isles Beach in 1997. Harvey B. Graves would never have envisioned his tract as a millionaire’s row of glamorous high-rise hotels and condos crowding its white sands. More than 22,000 residents live in this one-mile-square beachside town. Cost of living there is reportedly 118 percent higher than the average of other U.S. cities. It may still be a “camera land” but not of its once-lush, semi-wild tropical landscape.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami Herald, Aug. 24, 1921

Miami News, Oct. 01, 1921

Miami Herald, Oct. 5, 1921

Miami Herald, Nov. 22, 1921

Miami Herald, March 16, 1922

Miami Herald, April 8, 1922

Miami News, June 19, 1922

Miami News, Jan. 22, 1923

Miami News, March 14, 1923

Miami News, April 6, 1923

Miami Herald, May 2, 1926

Miami Herald, May 12, 1929

Miami Herald, March 3, 1930

Miami News, July 3, 1942

Miami Herald, Nov. 1, 1936

Miami News, Jan. 10, 1937

Wikipedia

Tags: Sunny Isles, Harvey B. Graves, Motel Row, 

Beach life – more than meets the eye. A lifeguard’s dedication to profession and community

Lt. Serrano, Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue, photo courtesy of G. Serrano

 
By Jane Feehan 

Gio Serrano’s stop in Fort Lauderdale on his way to Texas in 1996 would change his life.

Traveling from Puerto Rico to begin school at the Art Institute in Dallas, he was blown away on that fateful stop at the South Florida beach.

“Wow! You can get paid to work on the beach in Fort Lauderdale,” Gio exclaimed then as an 18-year-old. 

The beach had drawn him into its waters as a kid growing up in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It’s where he learned to swim when his mother coaxed him into the water to encourage him to learn. 

“There was a lot of school skipping to go to the beach,” he confessed. There were no lifeguards there; that’s part of what intrigued him about Florida and lifeguarding. He decided to stay.

Serrano transferred his enrollment to the Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale to study computer animation. Determined to succeed, he worked while in school part time as a lifeguard for the YMCA in Fort Lauderdale and the YMCA in Hollywood, completed his studies and progressed into a full-time career with Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue (FLOR), which included his developing their first website.

Ocean Rescue, recognized nationally for excellence, is comprised of one chief, eight lieutenants, 36 full-time and 90 part-time lifeguards.

Today, as a first responder Lieutenant Gio Serrano blends his skills as a paramedic, an emergency medical technician (EMT) and a CPR expert to serve beachgoers in trouble. He was recognized as Lifeguard of the Year in 2007. Today he can be seen in a red rescue vehicle patrolling areas that include five lifeguard towers between Fort Lauderdale’s south and central beach to ensure staff have what they need to perform rescue or life-saving medical duties. Serrano also trains lifeguards on the beach three days a week as well as the marine unit of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

A major part of a lifeguard’s work is responding to medical emergencies, which can spill into sidewalks and adjacent roads—or other into other municipalities such as Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, via mutual aid agreements.

But water rescues also rank high. “More than 50 percent of people can’t swim,” said Serrano. “Or they overestimate their abilities. Treading water in a pool is much different than dealing with changing ocean currents and conditions.”

He also said troubles may be seen before an ocean swimmer calls for help. The work of lifeguards includes interpreting behaviors in the water that indicate lack of confidence or recklessness. Some may hear a warning shouted over a solar powered PA system from a lifeguard tower. Other swimmers often don’t pay attention to where the towers are and express surprise about where a lifeguard comes from when one arrives to assist. “Towers sit 10 to 15 ft above eyelevel, yet they don’t notice them,” said Serrano who also pointed out there are far more rescues performed than life-saving activities.

Lt. Serrano teaching
kids CPR, photo courtesy
of G. Serrano

Many who don’t go to the beach may see Lt. Serrano beyond the city’s white sands; community outreach lies close to his heart. He trains kids in CPR and in swimming safety at Broward County schools.

There’s more that Lt. Serrano does for the community.

“One of my favorite things to do is visit pediatric hospitals with the 501^st Division (think Star Wars and Jedi General Anakin Skywalker). Dressed in uniforms replicating those in the movie, Serrano and friends raise spirits and help realize hopes through Make a Wish Foundation.

Lt. Serrano (white shirt)
recognized for service,
photo courtesy G. Serrano

We never know or appreciate what a lifeguard may be asked to do. During this interview, Lt. Serrano was asked by a homeless visitor to assist with a cell phone call; another asked about a contact to help find her shelter. They came to the right person; he assisted with both.

One thing Lt. Serrano does not do is go to Fort Lauderdale’s beach on his day off. However, he visits Florida’s Keys and occasionally the Ocala National Forest for a complete change of scenery.

With 25 years in Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue, he brings not only expertise but also singular dedication to our community and compassion to those in trouble. It’s all in his day’s work. It’s the real beach life.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Giovanni Serrano, Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue, Lt. Gio Serrano, lifeguards, Fort Lauderdale beach