Valentine’s Day in Miami

Tonight, I’m spending Valentine’s Day in the Sheraton Miami Airport club, watching cars and enjoying jalapeño poppers with humus, some sort of salad, a can of Bubly and a cupcake. Valentine’s Day and travel can be strange. It is a time when couples are all snuggly and hotels and lounges generally try to do something special. For me, as a single guy in my late 30’s, I try to write and read and otherwise enjoy the sweets without thinking about it too much. If I want a reminder, I can always look outside and see all of the couples arguing.

I’m in Miami for the Miami International Boat Show. This is an event where ostentatious wealth doesn’t begin to describe things. This is a place where an $800,000 boat is sold to people who need it to get to the bigger boat. These boats have more square footage than my apartment, with full-time crews to serve the owners who I’ve heard use the vessels a few times a year.

My purpose here is to investigate what in this market can be converted from running on gas to electric. In many instances, we are looking at the boats and other toys that go inside the yachts. What good is a yacht if you can’t go foil boarding from it, or take your jet ski on a quick run in the morning? In this market, money means something different than it does to most people. These toys often run about $25-40K, or about the same as the average annual earnings for someone with a high school diploma in 2022. Some are closer to the average salary of most attorneys.

I find Florida to be an interesting mix of people. The bending of cultures makes it fantastically diverse and brings with it languages and textures that come from so many places around Latin America. If you combine that with all the New Yorkers who seem to inundate this place, the tourists who are here for cruises and everyone else, the people watching can be particularly great. At the boat show, many of the women have perma-smiles from the work done on their faces (more botox is seldom the best answer to a problem). I have yet to ride with an Uber driver whose English was better than his or her Spanish. The stark diversity is also highlighted by the new construction. Downtown Miami is full of tall buildings that get more impressive the closer you get to the water. Looking west are the more affordable areas without tech executives and Orange Theory studios on every corner. These less affluent areas are also where the yachts are built and launched.

Ah, Valentine’s day…

A mid-sized yacht.