April 2026 Transatlantic - Day 2
We took our time rising and shining today after having a pretty good sleep. During our target run last night we had picked up some yogurt and a few snacks for breakfast and our drive.
Around 9 am we headed out. I had planned today's stops with ChatGBT, and it had done a pretty good job at picking stops, even though we didn't stop at them all. Our first stop was at Biscayne National Park. Brenda thought I was going to dump her there as no one was on the road with us, but there were quite a few people at the park once we got there.
They have numerous excursions available, including paddle boarding and snorkeling.
We started to make our way to the keys. The first part of the drive was not really what we were expecting, mostly mangroves and not much water that we could see.
Next we stopped at Coral Reef State Park. They had a visitor's centre that had a little aquarium in it.
Then we wandered around outside for a while
While we were at the other park I said "I sure want to see a Manatee", and while standing on a little bridge watching the fish below and I thought to myself "why is that rock moving?" It was the manatee I wanted to see!
It kind of looks like a dinosaur.
There is also a really nice beach area and if you want to help pick up the litter they have the equipment ready for you.
We had a couple more stops on the agenda, once being the lookout for 7 mile bridge, but I missed the exit. And the turn to get into Bahia Hondo State Park was very backed up, so we skipped that. Instead we kept driving to Key West, enjoying the scenery and looking at the small terrible looking houses ;) along the way.
Once we made it to Key West we went to a beach park and walked along the pier, enjoying the birds and sea breeze.
After our time at the beach we drove around some more checking out the town. We went by mile marker 0 and the 90 miles to Cuba marker, but it was just so busy down there, there was no parking and so many people that we just decided to start making our way north. The GPS was saying 5 hours to get to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale, so we also wanted to start heading that way.
On our way back we could see this thing over one of the Keys and we weren't sure what it was. From a certain angle it looked like the top of a water tower, but you couldn't see the bottom and as we got closer we realized it was a blimp! I snagged a photo on our way back.
We tried to stop at the spots we had missed on the way down and it still didn't work. Bahia was still really lined up. So we stopped back at the Coral Reef Park again to stretch our legs and use the washroom.
We did come through a heavy rain storm that made driving a bit rough, but I got through it and with way less traffic then I was expecting we made it to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale.
We got checked in, dropped our bags off and pretty much ran out of the door for dinner as we were both really hungry, since we both had pretty much survived the day on snacks. We decided to go to 15th Street Fisheries for dinner. If you like seafood I highly recommend a visit. Upstairs is a little more fine dining and downstairs is casual, we have done both, this is our third visit. Tonight we sat downstairs, the only downside is they don't take reservations downstairs. The wait was about 20 minutes for our table at 8pm. While waiting I went and wandered outside, it is what I do... and I found a few small boats.
For dinner we both had the shrimp tacos and they were very good.
On the way back to the hotel we filled the rental car up so we wouldn't have to deal with that in the morning and then it was time to get a good sleep since tomorrow is cruise day!