Sunday, January 22, 1995 - Fort Lauderdale, FL

In the morning, we paddled a couple of miles up the ICW to Birch State Park. Unfortunately, there was no place to land or tie up. The park has a cement wall all along the edge of the water. There are no ladders or ramps or even toe-holds. At best, we might have been able to grab an overhanging branch and pull ourselves up to the top of the wall, but getting back into our Royaks without tipping them over would have been a problem. Roy turned back, but I went all the way to the far end of the park, hoping I'd find a way to get in, but I didn't. Then on the way back, about a quarter mile south of the park, I saw a tiny beach with soft sand. I don't know how we missed it on the way up. It was easy to pull up there, and we could have walked through the woods to the road and over to the park, but since Roy had already gone back, I didn't bother. I needed to buy groceries anyway.
On Sundays, the buses run only once an hour, so when I missed the bus going to the store, I walked instead of sitting around waiting. It was a mile or two. The store was expensive, so I only bought the essentials. I was hoping I wouldn't miss the bus back. Luckily, there was a bus stop right in front of the store. The bus was coming as I walked across the parking lot, so I ran to the sidewalk and waved. To my joy, the bus stopped. Then I was afraid of overshooting the stop near the bridge, since I'm not familiar with the area yet, so I pushed the signal when I thought the bus was nearly there. Turned out it was a stop too soon, but that was no big deal; it was only one block to walk.
When I reached the dinghy dock, I saw Roy paddling to the boat. He saw me and returned to the dock. I was stunned when he told me he had rented a slip across the way at the city dock. He didn't tell me we needed to go there to use the electricity because the batteries were nearly dead. Instead, he said he thought I wanted to move to a dock. I had said several times that I wanted to stay at the mooring until we moved to a boatyard, so I got pretty upset and angry. Roy went back across the bridge, cancelled the reservation, got his money back, and paid for another night at the mooring. It wasn't until several hours later, when it was time to fix supper, that he told me I couldn't use the microwave because the batteries were almost dead. If I had known there was a compelling reason to move to the dock, I would have gladly assented. Anyway, Roy cooked supper in the pressure cooker on the propane stove, and tomorrow morning, we'll either use the propane stove again or go to McDonald's for breakfast.