May 1, 2025 Breakfast - Cozy Greens. Lunch - Flamingo Resort. Dinner - Black Point Ocean Grill
We got up and looked for a breakfast spot. The first place was terrible so we drove to Cozy Greens that was not much better, but miraculously had bagel and cream cheese on the menu and a cured salmon sandwich with Caramelized red onions, ricotta, and pistachio gelato. So I asked for a bagel with cream cheese with cured salmon and caramelized red onions. The attendant garnished the untoasted bagel with some shavings of a firm cheese for that extra pizzazz. We both drank cafe con leche, which was very hot and pretty tasty. I liked the vinegary red onions as much or more than the traditional vinegary capers
After breakfast we drove to the Visitors’ Center at The Everglades National Park, arriving a few minutes before 9:30. Claudia, one of the assistant’s offered to take us on a tour for $63.00 per person and we accepted. It turned out that we were the only two participants.
She was affiliated with a foundation that supports the Everglades National Park and was a seasoned naturalist. She drove us in a van foundations van first to Ajinga Trail. On the way we saw about a 12 foot long alligator half submerged in a small pond that was drying up by a culvert filled with dead fish.
Claudia explained that this is the end of the dry season and everything is fighting to stay alive until the rainy season starts in a few weeks. She said this the driest she has ever seen the park.
We then walked the Anjinga trail where Claudia explained that its vegetation was dominated by pond apples. We saw swallow tailed Kites, banded turtles, and several small alligators, as well as lots of interesting plants, such as red bromeliads.
We then drove to a now abandoned Nike Missile site, which was a remnant of the response to the 1962 Russian missile crisis and finally we stopped in a cypress forest that was in bloom producing tiny pinecones.
We returned to the Visitor’s Center around noon and then drove to the coast to Flamingo Visitors’ Center to see flamingos and crocodiles and saw neither but stopped in a new resort restaurant and shared a smoked fish dip with pita bread points, carrots, cucumber slices, and celery sticks plus Suzette drank a Beer and I drank a Pepsi with two refilled.
The ranger at Flamingo told us where to go to see nesting spoonbills, so on the way back we stopped and saw four or five roseate spoonbills. Flamingo was a small hamlet and fishing village before it was included in the National Park and it still had its original dock and store. I bought a chilled cup of chocolate pudding topped by a small cup of crushed Oreo pieces that I ate while the attendant messed with their internet connection to bring it back on line so she could process my $3.95 purchase. It was a delicious dessert in a most unlikely location out at the crocodile coast at the southern tip of Florida. When I asked the dockmaster, “Where are the crocodiles?”, he answered, “There were lots of them mating a couple of weeks ago but the females have probably gone back up into higher ground to lay their eggs and the males to rest after all their exertion.”
We then drove to the lake where the roseate spoonbills were nesting and saw four or five sitting in a tree across from the parking lot in a protected area.
We counted the trip a success, even though it was a very dry park because we were able to see the Park at a moment in the yearly seasonal cycles that was highly unusual.
We left the spoonbill lake around 4:00 and drove about 45 miles to Black Point Ocean Grille at the Black Point Marina located on a boat channel that connects a large marina to Biscayne Bay.
We ordered dinner at 5:30 during happy Hour. We both ordered glasses of Bancroft New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, plus a medium stone crab claw, and a grilled red snapper fillet topped with a crab cake and drizzled with a shrimp sauce served on a platter with a pile of a blend of wild and regular rice and a bowl of fresh green beans.
We did not think much of the Stone crab claw because it did not have as much crab flavor as the fresh Dungeness crabs we usually buy at Costco, but liked the grilled red snapper garnished with a crab cake and drizzled with shrimp sauce. The fish filet was tough on the thinner ends but tender in the middle under the crab cake.
As the sun sank lower in the sky Suzette ordered a Margarita for dessert and we left just before sunset at 7:15 as the sun was setting.
One of the interesting things about the Black Point Ocean Grill is that it is located next to a large Marina on the boat channel linked directly to the Atlantic so it is accessible by boat. While we were sitting at the table next to the water several pleasure boats docked and there was a coterie of boat owners drinking and swapping tall tales by the bar in one of the three levels of the large restaurant.
The other neat thing about the restaurant is that it is located across from a park and the boat channel was blocked by bouys just past the Marina and that protected channel appeared to be a manatee habitat because I saw three manatee swim from the protected area toward the ocean.
The other really neat thing I saw was an Osprey fly low over the water in the wide area between the channel and the marina and catch a fish with its claws and carry the fish away.
Our day of discovery finally ended after we talked to a local couple who sat at the next table and advised us how to avoid the traffic when we go the Biscayne Bay National Park tomorrow.
I watched Death in Paradise and Paris Murders on South Florida PBS and then blogged and went to bed at 10:00.
Bon Appetit
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