01/13/00 Paddling Lower Section:
Thinking I'd be safe taking a walk on the southern part of the Canaveral National Sea Shore I started up the deserted section around 7:30am. I had passed lots of signs forbidding nudity on the beaches and didn't think I'd run into any more naked men.
I picked up one medium size pen shell, several angel wings and several lettered olives plus a couple of small whelks. After close to 2 hours I turned around and headed back.
I could see a guy coming towards me. The sun was behind him so I couldn't tell if he had clothes on or not as I paid close attention to the palmettos along the dunes away from him. In the parking lot I saw 2 really ugly looking women with tons of make up on. They headed in the same direction as the guy. My thoughts are I got my naive little butt out of there just in time because signs or no, those folks were about to start shedding.
I drove down to the Eddy Creek put in and launched amidst a bunch of fishing lines into a small cove. A 5-10 knot wind was blowing from the west or southwest. This may signal a cold front moving in. The prevailing winds seem to be from the north or northwest and the radio was talking about the temperature dipping into the high 60's tomorrow because of a cold front (Brrrrr!).
I was nearing the mouth of the cove when I heard a great commotion and a lot of splashing over near the southern shore and saw 2 dorsal fins. A pair of dolphins were working together to round up a school of fish for brunch and they sure made a racket.
They were moving back towards the ramp so I fell in right behind them and followed them for a while at a distance . Even with the wind blowing a little chop, it became easy to follow their progress under water, once you knew they were there.
They circled around and moved out of the cove, turning in one direction while I went the other. I had to follow them out because I ran out of water where I was and had to paddle over to the deeper channel they had used to exit.
After a short distance I turned into another cove and there was this fantastic view of the shuttle launch pad in the distance, fronted by the long, narrow cove. Actually there are 2 launch pads. The other one, some little distance behind the first had something ready to launch when I saw it later in the day.
I couldn't find much water in this area. The bottom was mostly covered by 6 inch grass with a couple of inches of water on top. The several islands were mostly covered with a low lying bushy tree. A lot of larger gnarly trees were dead and presented a sharp contrast.
Many Ibises were out, as were a few blue herons, a couple of pelicans and great egrets. A good many of those small jellyfish drifted by and I scared up a number of sting rays and spotted another dolphin on the way back.
Nothing special but a pleasant couple of hours on the water.
01-14-00:
The radio said a cold front was moving in Thursday night. What they didn't say it was a Nor'easter. A Nor'easter in Florida? Well, when the winds are out of the northeast at 35+ knots an hour (that's my guess, they were probably more), I don't know what else to call it. I have been having problems with the train noise near the campground but when these winds started around 3am, I couldn't even hear the trains.
I looked out the tent window to see how the gazebo was holding up but it wasn't there, nor was any of my stuff. When I saw the picnic table was gone too, it dawned on me I might be looking out the wrong window. The wind was doing a job on it though. About the only thing I could do was unzip both doors and let the wind blow right through. It held up fine after that.
I took a walk on the beach and like with kayaking, I headed into the wind at the start, knowing I'd have to fight it coming back. Turkey buzzards were out there soaring around. They can hover and maintain their position by adjusting their wings and bodies. Lines of pelicans would fly overhead, sideways, not straight ahead, but sideways.
The wind was stacking breakers up 6-7 deep and waves were cresting as far out as I could see. The wind was blowing sand over the seashells and building little mini-sand dunes behind them.
01-15-00:
The wind did not let up all day yesterday and most of the night too. Early in the morning it dropped down to 15-20 where it stayed the rest of the day. Not a good paddling day for the old geezers.
I took a chance and went to the end of the south entrance, hoping the weather would keep the sun lovers away and it did. Instead, I ran into a Marine Conservation group out picking up trash from the high tide mark. Good for them! I'd been thinking of doing that and was inspired to go out and buy some trash bags.
The beach walk, 2 1/2 hours, netted a lot of pen shells (the fan like shells) and some interesting stones. I shared the upper beach with lots of brown pelicans and turkey buzzards and a fair number of jellyfish swept onto the shore by the wind. Their bodies swell up and they look like plastic baggies.
Yesterday, a bunch of 20 year olds were eyeing the waves for surfing possibilities but walked away. Today the wind surfers were out on Indian River.
I pulled into the parking lot of a boat ramp on Kennedy Parkway to be greeted by a dozen or more turkey vultures hopping around. It didn't take long to find their interest. A dolphin lay on the boat ramp where someone must have pulled it up as it facing nose down on the ramp.
01/16/00 Paddling Middle Islands:
Heavy winds from the northeast kept me off the water the past 2 days. The wind was still from the northeast this morning but down to a manageable
The atlas shows some islands in the middle of the eastern shore of Mosquito Lagoon. Unfortunately that shore has no put ins nearby. The west shore has several so after leaving Merritt Island this morning, I drove up to the Kennedy Parkway that has easy access to Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River on the other side.
I launched and began the 2+ mile crossing into a 10 knot wind. During the crossing I concentrated on my stroke trying to keep the left arm straight and relieve as much pressure from it as I could. I'm using an exaggerated stroke, keeping the arms straight as I bring the stroke all the way back to the stern, rather than stopping amidships. I am out here for exercise and I can feel the lats, back and waist areas being used.
30 minutes found me approaching an island with a nice, white, sandy beach where I thought I'd have an early lunch. As I neared the beach I could make out more and more pelicans and I'd guess their numbers at 75-100, maybe more. 2/3 of them were brown pelicans and the remainder were all white ones. I paddled up wind of them and drifted down on the wind and got a couple of good pictures of the separate groups without disturbing them. Since I couldn't eat lunch there I paddled to another island with a white, sandy beach that turned out to be mud so I ate in the kayak.
I paddled back into a cove with only a foot of water in it. Three very flat bottomed boats were way in back fishing. I was thinking "What could they be fishing for in this little bit of water?" when I saw one of guys holding a fish 2.5 feet long. He got that out of there? I think it was a redfish.
This water wasn't deep enough for pelicans to dive into after fish. What they'd do is skim over the water looking for a fish and then swoop down on it. Then it appears they open their mouth to scoop it up. The lower jaw drops down and of course goes into the water and this causes the pelican to crash into the water with a great splash. I don't care if it works or not, that's got to hurt a little.
I bypassed a large cove that had no apparent outlet and decided to head into the wind and just paddle. I finally found some water under me and finally got a little wave action from the wind. The nice, even stroke had me crashing into the 1.0-1.5 foot waves and it's been a while since I've done that. I started angling towards the far shore but kept an eye on the waves as they were now coming at my beam.
I saw a green marker as I neared the far shore but the question was, which way to turn. I was pretty sure I wanted to go left but I got the GPS out anyway since there weren't any real distinguishing features to go by. The GPS said go left too but I was surprised I had 3.5 miles to go.