Hollywood Beach, Florida

On our way south, we passed through the area of Hollywood Beach, and thought it might be worth a stop. When we were anchored off of Sands Key, I put an email out to the trawler group we joined, and asked if anyone had spent time there and what they thought of the place. I got answers right away, that it was worth seeing. We called the city marina for a slip, and settled in for a few days of sunny, 80 degree weather.

Hollywood Beach is a bit like downtown Ocean City, Md., with small hotels, condos and houses. It is a lot like Venice Beach, Ca. in it's style of buildings and houses. There is a concrete ocean walk along the beach, lined with many restaurants and stores. A portion of the ocean walk is reserved for bikes and rollerblading. Our marina was right near the Hollywood Beach Bridge, that crosses the Intracoastal. Once over the bridge, it was only two blocks to the ocean, making it an easy bike ride from the boat.

After settling into our slip, we ventured over to ride along the ocean walk. We spotted Mamacita's, and headed in for some Mexican food. Soon after we were seated, a woman came out and started singing in Spanish and dancing, grabbing volunteers to join in. We laid low, and were spared our turn as dancing partners. She had some serious volume to her voice, and drew a crowd of spectators who gathered outside on the ocean walk to listen.

Both the ocean walk and the beach were quite crowded while we were there. We noticed a LOT of cars from Canada, specifically Quebec .Canada must close that part of the country in the winter months, as the citizens are all in Hollywood Beach! Signs in a lot of stores and restaurants let people know that they spoke French. There is a stage located along the ocean walk, and one day when we went to the beach, a man was up there, singing songs in French. Quite a crowd had gathered to listen to him, and there were a lot of people line dancing in front of the stage. French line dancing...interesting; I took some video.

We spent time on the beach for a few days, and wandered around town a bit. There was the usual laundry and grocery shopping, and then we prepared to head farther north. Here are some pictures.