Thursday, April 2 — It rained hard all morning, but the forecast said it was supposed to stop in the afternoon. By the time Christi and Keith finished school, the rain had mostly stopped. Believing it was going to be clear for the rest of the afternoon, Keith and Christi hopped in the car and drove down to Ft. Lauderdale, which was about an hour drive south, to see Tiki Tour.

Shortly after getting on the freeway, a cloud rolled over that dropped rain so hard that there was no visibility. Maps re-routed us off the freeway, so we figured there must have been an accident ahead. The detour took us a couple of miles south before routing us back onto the freeway. The street route had many traffic lights, and it took a solid half-hour to drive those two miles. By the time we were back on the freeway, the rain had stopped and the freeway was clear.

Tiki Tour was anchored in the ICW near a bridge. Unfortunately, Christi was confused about which bridge and went to a spot about a mile away. After a bit of texting back and forth with Tiki about not seeing their boat, Tiki figured out we were in the wrong place. All in all, by the time we finally arrived at the correct bridge, the one hour drive had turned into a two hour drive.

While there had been heavy rain North Palm Beach, it hadn’t really rained in Ft. Lauderdale this morning, and no rain was in the forecast for the afternoon. Christi, Diane, Keith and Fynn went to the Hugh Taylor Beach State Park, located on the barrier island between the ICW and the beach. The entrance fee was $6 per vehicle or $2 per person if entering by foot, so it was actually cheaper for the four of us to take the car in than it would have been to walk in.

Per the map/brochure they gave us, the road did a one-way loop around the 180-acre park, with parking lots interspersed along the loop. We found a parking spot and began to explore on foot. Per the blurb on the brochure, the Tequesta Indians utilized this land during their annual migrations, but generally moved on quickly. The first permanent settlement in Ft. Lauderdale was the fort, which was built for the Second Seminole War, and was located about 2-miles south of the park. It sounded like Hugh Taylor Birch was one the earliest non-military residents in the area. In 1893, he started purchasing land in what is now part of the city of Ft. Lauderdale. Upon his death in 1943, he donated this piece of land to the city to be used to preserve a natural, wild area for the protection of wildlife. It was a surreal little rural oasis in the middle of the dense and bustling city.

The diversity of the park was surprising. On the south side was the ICW, with a sea wall and dock that offered great views of the nearby expensive waterfront homes.

There were quite a few walking trails. This one paralleled the road.

And several trails went through the center. Most of the trails we walked were quite different from one another.

We believe this was called a tropical hammock, which meant a closed canopy forest characterized by a diverse mix of evergreen and semi-deciduous trees and shrubs.

One of the trails took us through a clearing with a huge banyan tree.

We’d actually been looking for the beach, and after going around in circles on various trails, we finally asked the ranger to point us in the right direction. He told us to go to the restaurant and said we could cross the street to the beach from there. We felt a little weird traipsing through the restaurant, but we hadn’t seen any exterior paths around the restaurant. It looked like it was more of a bar than a restaurant, and was probably a fun place to grab a drink and enjoy the gorgeous views of the beach and park.

There was an underground pedestrian tunnel, but it was closed, so we crossed the busy street. The beach was a lovely white sand. We sat on the sand for a while before we headed back to the car and left the park. We decided to stop for ice cream and found a cute little shop not far from the park.

We dropped off Fynn and Diane at their boat and hopped on the freeway north. The ride back was smooth and uneventful.

Eric hadn’t gone with Christi and Keith because he was waiting for the guy from Yacht Tech to come out and discuss the work that Eric wanted to have done. Eric spent the afternoon doing miscellaneous boat chores. He readjusted the fenders, cleaned all the stuff that normally lives on deck when we’re in anchoring mode, then stowed it. He disconnected the dinghy from the crane, rinsed out the dinghy, removed the motor, and put away the solar panels. He found some moldy stuff in one of the lockers and cleaned what could be cleaned and tossed what couldn’t. Much to Eric’s frustration, the Yacht Tech guy did not make it to Kosmos.

When Christi and Keith returned, we picked up Eric and went to a grocery store that Johnny and Joanne had recommended called Doris, which was located about 1/2 mile north, in the same shopping center as West Marine.

They’d said that Doris had a great selection of imported foods, as well as a great selection of prepared foods. They even made their own sausage.

It was indeed a high end store. It was reminiscent of Trader Joe’s in a lot of ways. We picked up a few groceries and some prepared foods that we took back to Kosmos for dinner.