Jungle Queen

Aye Judy: We lived with the JQ for 24 years as we were based up the New River and made friends with her and her Master’s many times.
After a while we recognized the Captains on the VHF and they knew us bumbling around on sailboat Rhapsody, always on the way to the Keys or the Bahamas or back, and always Port to Port, from 1999 to 2013. (Sold the sailboat May 2013 but kept running the river on stink-potters ever after, but easy with twin engines or bow thrusters, or both.)
Then the New River got more busy and more aggressive, not so much fun, more work, big boats going sideways in the narrows with close calls and no clue.

We do remember the first female JQ Captain back then, she did very well, guess she moved on..
We usually met the Jungle Queen at the most narrow corners, like Little Florida but her whistle and the VHF calls made it no big deal.
Can’t say we miss her, but maybe we do.

(I occasionally fantasized about buying a ticket on the Jungle Queen just to sit in upper forward viewing areas to observe the face expression of newbie small boaters seeing the JQ for first time dead ahead coming sideways at them and doing
12 knots with the current, whistle blowing hard and 200 ignorant pax waving friendly with drink in hand not knowing how challenging the River is down current on a big arse barge with a famous name.)
Respect JQ

My best encounter with JQ came on my first date with my future wife.
We had just left Tugboat Annies where we had dinner and were heading up river when the outdrive on my boat seized up ( mechanic who just rebuilt it forgot to put oil in it!!). Well as I was trying to get my kicker started guess who comes around the bend on their return trip back down river from their dinner cruise ( back when they had them ) good old JQ. Capt thought he'd help us out by turning the spotlight on us! to which my date and I are standing there like Deer in the headlights, the only thing that snapped us out of it was all the flashbulbs going off from the tourists on the JQ taking our picture. Luckily I got the kicker started on the second pull and off we scooted. My wife still talks about it 32yrs later.

Aye, memories : Tugboat Annies was one of my watering holes and a friend of mine had
a part time gig as the Dock Master there, he was also the Captain on Lady B…..
This thread remained me to buy a ticket on JQ next time in Fort Lauderdale, preferably on a
Sunday with good weather and heavy boat traffic.

I’m starting to know the different skippers by the sound of their voice chewing a@# over the loud speaker to some poor small boater in the way. The JQ appears to give way to nobody smaller than her, from my view.
Tugboat Annies brings back fond memories indeed.

more commonly known as "Might Makes Right" guideline

Must be a new thing, or new attitude..
The first 20 years I ran the New River, from 1999 it was more relaxed, but not exactly fun and games going down-current in rush hour,
(Being the clever Skipper I am, it only took me a year or two to go figure out I better go into the current, at night with zero traffic, but then I realized the bridge operators were asleep then and only horns and million lumen search lights would wake ‘em up, if lucky. Single engine sailboat headed for Gulfstream crossings to the Bahamas, or returning, day or night made no difference on 2 - 3 week trips)

The JQ Captains back then never chewed arse, instead they anticipated newbie boaters and were already at idle speed ready to go full reverse if closing on to Joe Six-Pack around the bend.
(Not that I was ever one of those newbies of course..)
The JQ bridge was 3 stories up and they could see around and above the twists and turns of the river and almost above roofs and palm trees along the shoreline.

The closest I have even to a crash on the New River was not with the JQ going sideways down-current, but rather with me on Odin Charters, an Albin 28TE, going outbound, with the current, on a pleasure cruise with friends, like 2000 times before and doing the VHF calls, paying attention as usual, etc.
I heard on the VHF there was 2 incoming boats in the 90-95 foot range.
I briefly considered waiting before entering the Little Florida S turns, but I said what the hell, I will hug my shore and there shouldn’t be any problem, after all I was in a small boat and could hide between docks and/or back up on a dime..
Wrong..
In the middle of the Little Florida S turn comes this 95’ Broward or similar mega yacht inbound and sideways pretty much out of control despite the outgoing tidal current on her bow and with less than stellar planning, or dare I say, talent.
It became evident within a few seconds that we could not pass Port to Port, or rather my Port to the 95’s arse as she was sideways and my only option was to go full reverse and use the bow thruster to angle closer to the seawall on my Starboard, preferably without hitting it using max reverse.
No fiberglass made contact but I was shook up with a 220 pulse and yelled at the 95’ on channel 9 telling her to get off the F… River if she didn’t know how to drive.
She replied it was all my fault and she was not out of control at all and besides she had the right of way because she came with the current. (Except she didn’t, she was going into the outgoing tide but got confused and ended up sideways anyways)

The JQ was easy and predictable compared to incompetent “Captains” on smaller boats and I never pooped in my pants meeting The Queen anywhere on the River.