At Archibald’s in North Beach Village on Sunday we heard three people speaking an interesting sounding language.
“Excuse me,” I asked them, “are you speaking Greek?” I lived in Greece for four months and am pretty good at identifying languages.
“Basque,” they said.
I don’t think I’d ever heard Basque spoken in South Florida. I’m not a fan of jai alai.
They said they were from San Sebastian. “That’s a beautiful city,” I said. “And you moved from San Sebastian to Fort Lauderdale?” I asked, in a tone of astonishment.
“Have you been to San Sebastian in January?” the man asked.
We found a table in the shade, next to a Fort Lauderdale lifeguard on his lunch break. Hania has a fear of sharks, so we asked him if he sees many.
No, he said. The Gulf Stream is pretty far from the beach in Fort Lauderdale, and that’s where the food is. “There’s nothing for them to eat here,” the man said confidently. “A shark who wanders in close is probably lost.”
He said the animal to be concerned about is not the shark but the Portuguese man o’ war. Its sting is powerful, and can be deadly. But there’s a season for them: November to March.
I’m going to be swimming in the ocean before November.
