I actually put the kayak in the water at the public boat ramp that is off of SW 30th Ave and Griffin road. It is a quite popular boat ramp that only locals would know about. It is well off the beaten path and despite being very new and modern, unless I told you about it or you found it via a Google search, you would never know it existed.
Why so? Well, this boat ramp is a part of a small park. This small park was only built and developed as part of a complex of new homes and town homes that was built with in the past 8 years or so on the Dania Cut Off canal exactly east of this SW 30th Ave bridge.
Here is a significant part of the history behind these new homes. They are beautiful, two story, tile roof, higher end homes that were built in 2005, give or take a year. These homes were built at the height of the real estate boom / crash. The developer either went bankrupt or had some sort of financial problems and these 20 or so water front homes were built and sat vacant for 2 or 3 years. Yes, for 2 or 3 years, if you kayaked or boated past these new development of homes, you saw them all completed, sitting 100% vacant, like an abandoned complex, cause they were abandoned.
Here is the web site for these homes. >>> http://www.oakshh.com/
A video of one of these units. >>> http://www.visualtour.com/applets/flashviewer2/viewer.asp?t=2625581&sk=200&dm=youtube.com
In the past year or so, things turned around and now these houses have been sold to happy home owners and you can see them lived in and enjoyed. The higher end gas grills, the nice furniture, the big screen flat panel TV's and the Christmas decorations are seen on most of these homes as you paddle by and see them. It was not like this for the few years prior, when all you saw was abandoned shells of homes and high unkempt grass.
If my memory serves me correctly, these homes sold for in the area of $425,000. They were built to sell for more than one million in 2005.
Directly west of these homes is the boat ramp and small park. You enter the complex of homes and park via the same road off SW 30th Ave and drive through a wooded and landscaped path that leads to the homes and boat ramp. Again, it is off the beaten path and unless you were on a mission to find it, you would never know it existed.
This area of Griffin road, from I 95 to 441, a few blocks in, whether north or south, can be described as Redneck. It is like old Florida that never grew up or advanced. On 441 between Stirling road and Griffin road, you have the Hard Rock casino, which is the epitome of monetary advancement. It is world class, where singing Hollywood stars and the rich of the rich come to play in Fort Lauderdale.
The surrounding area is old school. Redneck people who are stuck in an era of I Love Lucy and Mayberry RFD. Rednecks! Trailer trash.
Actually there still are some old trailer parks existing in this area. It is a cultural phenomenon where people as a societal or cultural group have chosen to not advance.
Just like there are areas in Lauderdale Lakes or Lauderhill, where the blacks are ghetto and choose to express a culture of saggy pants showing their boxer shorts and have cars painted in a weird color with large rim tires and rap music blaring about bitches and nigga this and nigga that.
With gold teeth grillz and black women culturally wearing their toe nails long. The blacks have their culture and the Rednecks have theirs. Each group identifies with their culture and each group does not want to advance from it. It represents who they are and they like who they are and have no desire to change for you or me.
So here I am on the Dania Cut Off canal, paddling east from the SW 30th Ave boat ramp. More or less, every thing to your north is intentionally undeveloped land. It is left this way as vacant land in which airline traffic from the Fort Lauderdale airport flies high above.
In the past 10 years or so, the city came up with the great idea to develop boaters parks all along this northern side of the canal. Hence, you have about 8 or 9 parks along this mile or so stretch. They are called Boaters Parks and you can exclusively get to them via boat or kayak. They are not accessible via land. Why? Cause this land is protected air field strip land.
The parks for the most part are always vacant. You'll see lots of large lizards on the sea walls of them, sunning and observing the boaters that cruise on by.
Most all of the homes on the south side of the canal are sorta kinda older shacks. Maybe 10% to 25% of them have been built up into nicer homes. These are redneck type people though. Flannel shirts, non fancy fishing boats, Redneck guys with tattoos. Old Florida that never advanced. Modern times have not yet moved in.
Immediately east of all of these boaters parks, is the Rustic Inn. A sea food shack which is famous for tourists banging their mallets on wooden tables and wearing bibs to not get juice or splatter on your shirt. It is on Anglers Ave, (used to be called Ravenswood Road) just north of Griffin road.
Directly across the canal, across the Rustic Inn, is a marina that sat vacant for many years and is now developed and thriving with boats within it. I believe it is called Banyon Bay. Directly east of the Banyon Bay marina is a very old and salty marina which was known as Bonnies Ravenswood marina for many many years. It is a do it your self type marina which was very old and rustic. It is MY type of a marina. Old boats with character. When I moved to Florida 24 years ago, this is where I kept my boats for quite a few years.
There were many old wooden hull cabin cruisers on their last leg of life, as fiberglass boats were definitely the new kid on the block that was replacing them. More than one 30 to 50 foot wooden cabin cruiser was on land, being cut up with a standard circular saw with a 7" blade, to be thrown into the awaiting roll off container / dumpster.
Old tires can still be seen imbedded in the unprofessionally poured concrete that make up the sea walls of this old marina.
Directly east of Bonnies Ravenswood marina is Thunderboat marina. A more modern upscale marina, which also has indoor boat storage on a rack for $8 per foot. Gasoline is $4.95 a gallon, 90 octane and contains no ethanol.
Bonnies marina and Thunderboat marina have grown with the times and each have never been better looking. Like a modern old woman of 60 to 70 who frequents the plastic surgeons office and damn it, one day she may die, but she is gonna die looking good! :) They both have new pilings with plastic caps on top and lots of new boardwalk decks. Either the city or the marinas choice, these two marina have really cleaned up since the 24 years gone by that I docked boats there. They look better today than they ever did.
Directly east are train trestles and the I 95 over pass. Today, there was a fly bridge power boat that was stuck between these two bridges. Too high to get under the one, but was able to get under the other. The boat had to turn around and perhaps will come by again at low tide.
Directly on the NE side of I 95 on the Dania Cut Off canal is the Lauderdale Small Boat Club. This is a vast club with a few hundred boat slips, almost all occupied.
A little further east, opposite side of the boat club, is a little cove. I paddled into it. The water at the entrance to this cove was 2 to 3 feet deep and guess what as with in a few feet of me swimming by? A 7 foot long big ole fat manatee! What a sight for your eyes to see! :) Dark color, almost black, like a fat cow or small whale in the water. Very gentle and surely a lot heavier than my 30 pound kayak! He slithered on by, as I was much more observant of what was in the water beneath me.
I forgot to mention, at Thunderboat marina is an 84' steel Burger yacht. Rusting and awaiting what appears to be a salvage to cash in on its metallic content. This old 84' yacht sits there. I can not help but to imagine its history. How much money was spent over the years to upkeep this vast yacht and how now it is nothing more than a pile of rusting old posh steel that will eventually be scrapped and melted down into new steel for modern usage.
I paddle further east and behind the Hilton hotel, which is at I 95 and Griffin road, is a newly built marina with no boats in it. I can just imagine that this was planned to be an active marina and for what ever reason, it is abandoned. There is a sunken 26 foot or so fiberglass sail boat in one slip. Only the roof of the cabin is above water. There is no mast on it.
I paddle further east and come to where the canal meets Bryan Road. Enough paddling in one direction for one day, I turn around and head west again. This time paddling against the current. Man do I have a work out ahead of me for the next mile and a half or so.
I finally make it to the SW 30th Ave boat ramp. It is now dark out. Another meaningful day on the water, taking in some old Florida history.
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