12/29/06: Paddling Florida Bay:
Decided to make a mad dash down to the Everglades before the end of the holiday season. That's when most of the RVer's hit the road and more or less take over everything. I forgot about the holiday weekends for the locals and we had a full house in Flamingo last night. A couple of the camping loops were closed, supposedly because of Hurricane Wilma last year. I'm a little skeptical about that one.
Took a ride on the bike this morning and watched an osprey working on its nest. Then I thought I saw an owl perched up in a tree but on closer inspection I thought it might be a fat osprey chick out on its first flight. Then watched a wood stork fly overhead.
Stopped at Eco Pond just outside the campground. 4 Wood storks, 2 Roseate Spoonbills, a great American egret and a bunch of ducks all in one section of a little pond. Both the storks and the spoonbills feed by sweeping their bills back and forth thru to water looking for critters to munch on.
I decided to follow a road to a Bear Lake put in and found a gooky looking little stream. I ignored the overhanging brush and set out anyway. Not a good move. I fought my way under and around brush for 100 yards before giving up and turning back.
The forecast for the next 4 days is 15-20mph winds out of the east. I decided it wouldn't really matter when I put in so I launched at the marina. There are two sets of boat ramps, one for fresh water, leading up Buttonwood Canal and the other salt water, leading out to Florida Bay.
A big 9-10 foot alligator was laid up on the far shore near the fresh water ramps with a couple of 6-7 footers nearby. (Found out later they weren't 'gators but crocodiles). 50 or more trailers jammed the salt water parking area. I had been by earlier on the bike and there was a lot of traffic on those ramps at 7am.
I had no particular destination in mind, just to be out in the open water. Since I got a late start the wind was blowing and I headed into it. It was probably blowing 10mph or so, no white caps and most waves under a foot. Joe Kemp Key isn't much more than a mile or so but it still took me over an hour to get there, maybe an hour and a half. All mangroves as is the mainland shore. I had lunch out there and then just let the wind blow me back.
That's when I saw about 50 brown pelicans up in the trees out of the wind. I let myself drift within camera range and got some good photos. I had been seeing flocks of 15-20 snowy egrets flying around and then I saw a couple hundred roosting on Joe Kemp Key. I paddled over but they didn't like that and took off. Then I saw another big flock roosting on the mainland up from the pelicans. They don't like you anywhere near them and these took off too. I got a couple of really good pictures of them in flight though.
Still drifting with the wind I watched as flocks of 10 white pelicans started flying overhead from where ever they were to where ever they were going. Every couple of minutes another flock would go by. I got a few good photos. Then the osprey came out and started searching for lunch. Earlier I had watched brown pelicans crash diving into the water after fish near the surface.
The scenery so far hasn't been anything to brag about. All prairie or mangroves. The wildlife made up for that though. I just signed up for another 5 days so we'll see what we see.
12/30/06 Paddling Nine Mile Pond Loop (5.2 miles):
I don't know what Nine Mile Pond is nine miles from. It's almost 11 miles from Flamingo. Just a little pond, less than 1/4 mile. Met a guy who said two small ponds lie off to the left and there is a big crocodile in the last one. He also said the canoe trail is pretty monotonous. While unloading the kayak I noticed an 8 foot alligator cruising along the shore. There were a couple of guys fishing and I bet he was going to rip them off if they caught anything. Who's gonna argue with him.
I paddled back to the small ponds and saw several more fairly large alligators in the water but no crocodile. Saw a couple of wood storks though. I found the end of the canoe trail and decided to follow it for a ways. It passes through a mangrove tunnel and the trail is marked by tall PVC pipe markers. Less than 1/2 mile later and the closely packed mangroves gave way to smaller, scattered mangroves. I wasn't sorry to see them go because they become boring pretty quickly.
Now I was in less than 1 foot of water, with grasses not close together. There was this stuff floating on top that can best be described as soggy cereal. Between the drag of the boat over grasses and shallow waters and the grasses grabbing the paddle on every stroke and the grasses and that gook clinging to the paddle when I lifted it and... paddling against a 10-15mph wind, things were not too pleasant.
I kept at it for 1.5 hours or so. After the first hour I kept mumbling a dirty word to myself and at 1.5 hours said it out loud, turned around and started back. Not a fun paddle at all. And not very interesting even without the hard paddling. I saw several herons, several egrets and a couple of wood storks and that was it. Nothing else but that prairie view type landscape.
When I got back to the ponds I circled each one again. Scared up 3 pretty large alligators along with a wood stork in the 3rd one, and another wood stork in the 2nd one. In the main pond I was paddling along a marshy area when this monster came crashing out of the grasses into the water not 10 feet from my bow, followed by another and another. The first alligator must have been 9 feet long while the others two were in the 6-7 foot range. When they surfaced I also saw several other smaller guys giving me the evil eye.
12/31/06 (not) Paddling West Lake (7 miles one way):
The West Lake trail is over several large lakes connected by creeks and on down to Alligator Point on Snake Bight. I put in and turned left and soon ran into a dead end. Back at the put in I turned right and paddled out into an open lake... and 15+mph winds. 1 foot waves were coming at me about 2-3 feet apart. A small john boat was returning because of the wind.
I went back to the put in, dropped the rudder and put on the spray skirt and headed back out. That lasted all of 15 minutes during which I gained about 50 yards. Too much for these old bones.
A young couple from Minnesota were launching a canoe for at least one night of camping. I told them I didn't think it was a good idea but they went on. I walked down a 1/4 mile trail to a boardwalk overlooking the lake to see if they were alright. They had turned back and I watched them go with the wind away from the put in. I guess they were looking for a place to camp right away but not likely with nothing but mangroves around the lake.
Hiking Snake Bite Trail (4 miles round trip):
With nothing better to do I chose the Snake Bite Trail, mainly because of its name, I guess. It's a play on words, Bight being a type of cove or inlet at the end of the trail. The only thing of interest on the trail was the color of the stream that follows the trail. A deep, rich brown resulting from tannin secreted by the mangroves and decomposing vegetation.
I found a couple of 4 foot alligators in the 10 foot wide stream. Some purple morning glories were nice too. Nothing but mud flats at the end of the trail with a couple of herons pecking away in a small channel left by the tide. I knew high tide was the preferred time for birding here but this was about dead low tide.
Well, that's it for this year. I'm ending 2006 with a whimper. Hopefully I'll start 2007 with a bang.