We had a late start to the day - possibly the latest yet - but we could be forgiven after yesterday's fun and games! Skies were clear blue throughout the morning, and temperatures were in the low 30s as early as 10am. The first small puffs of cumulus began developing by early afternoon and that was our cue to get on the road.

We briefly paid a visit to Myakka State Park where we glimpsed gators, wild boar and all manner of wild Floridian residents. Fires were burning across the north side of the park, almost certainly caused by last night's lightning. The cloud was building rapidly over our rather sweaty visit to the park so it was time to hit the road. We weren't in too much of a rush though, to screech to a halt on State Road 72 and give a stately tortoise a boost across the carriageway to prevent certain squashing! Despite the gesture of goodwill, the raging reptile attempted to take a chunk out of Bren's hand after he placed it gently on the roadside verge.

We parked up west of Arcadia and east of Sarasota once again. Storms had developed on the Gulf Coast sea breeze boundary, and also on the northwestward-moving lake breeze from Okeechobee. However, despite throwing out a gust front which produced a nice breeze in our area, the storms never really looked like becoming anything significant so we decided to head back to base by early evening.

A line of storms developed after dark as earlier boundaries collided, stretching from Tampa to the furthest north-eastern portion of the state. The distant sky was lit with occasional lightning as we tucked into our evening meal, which consisted of salad - a welcome change to the eighty thousand calories we'd been eating daily up until this point!