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Category: dolphins
Sanibel Island
I was in Fort Myers for the weekend, so brought my kayak with me to get in some paddling time around Sanibel. I left home early Friday morning and arrived at the Sanibel Causeway around 12:00.
From the causeway, I could see Fort Myers Beach in the distance, as well as the Sanibel lighthouse on the southern tip of the island.
I paddled toward the nearest channel marker to have the last time in the channel as possible. The bayside was flat calm with no wind or waves, at least until boats started coming through the channel.
Rounded the point to paddle the Gulf side.
A pod of dolphins passed between me and the beach.
A little while after the dolphins a huge loggerhead sea turtle surfaced about twenty feet from me – no picture because he got his breath and went back under before I could turn the camera on.
I took a break on the beach on the way out and on the return.
The calm water of the bay was gone when I rounded the point, the wind had picked up and the tide was going out, so it was over a mile into the wind against the current.
Once off the water, I discovered two things:
First, the front hatch of my boat has a leak, so I was shipping water when waves broke over the bow. I drained quite a bit before loading up, but still had saltwater hitting my windshield in every decelerating, right-turn for two days.
Second, my sunscreen was less than effective.
Ow.
Happy Birthday at Haulover
For my birthday morning, I took my daughter and a friend of hers to Haulover Canal.
View Haulover Canal in a larger mapAfter a long drive to pick up her Little Boy Friend*, we hit Subway for breakfast and to pick up lunch. At Subway, they gave me a Sharpie to put our initials on the lunch sandwiches, which, of course gave me the opportunity to write LBF on her friend’s – he seemed to have a sense of humor about it, she erupted in a chorus of “I can’t believe you did that!”
Kayaking and annoying the girl-child … life is good.
We were on the water by 10:00 and headed up the canal.
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I put the kids in a tandem Pamlico while I paddled my Tarpon.
Shortly into the paddle, we spotted the first dolphin of the day.
And shortly after that, the manatees.
We left the manatees and the kids did a little exploring of Haulover’s unique shoreline.
Shortly after this picture, they drifted closer to the branches and I heard the girl-child express her concern that a snake might drop on her. (You may express your ridicule in the blog comments and I’ll make sure she gets them.)Under the bridge and past the manatee observation deck, there was a pair … sporting.
Some conversation in the other boat about what they were doing prompted the girl-child to ask me what I thought:“Well, sweetheart, when a mommy manatee and a daddy manatee love each other very much …”
“So you think they’re having sex too.”
A short way further along I spotted an alligator near the bank, but he sank out of sight before I could get a picture.
We exited the canal to the North – here are the mangroves where I stopped us to tell the kids the Mangrove Story.
What’s the Mangrove Story? Well, I believe that we should take advantage of opportunities to educate children:“Mangroves are very important to the coastal eco-system, because their roots provide a protected environment that acts as a nursery for many different species of fish, crabs and shrimp.
“Interestingly, if you take a 10’x10’ piece of nylon netting and some lead weights and use them to submerge a body amongst the roots … in two weeks it’ll be nothing but bones from all those little baby fishes and crabs.
“You should remember that as you spend time hanging out with my little girl.”**
The kid seemed to be a good sport about this story, too, because, of course and on advice of counsel, the Mangrove Story is just friendly kidding.
Just before heading out into the lagoon, we came across a barnacle-covered piece of driftwood.
The wind was out of the NE today, so we headed in that direction, crossing the lagoon before stopping to drift back as we ate lunch.
After lunch, on the way back, the girl-child will claim I fell in the water. I deny this charge. Here’s what happened:Because I had forgotten to bring towels, I was unable to improvise a
ass-padseat cushion as I have recently. After the paddle across the lagoon, the lack was being felt, so I stood up to stretch my legs.The Tarpon is a very stable boat, so standing up is not foolish. I’ve stood in it to fish before with no problems on calm water, and it was quite calm today.
From my standing position I was enjoying the view of the clear, shallow water when I spotted what I thought was a small turtle. A second look showed that it was a large crab and since the water was so shallow and clear, I wanted to get a good picture of it, so I quickly sat down.
Standing in the Tarpon is perfectly okay … sitting quickly, not so much.
So, yes, part of me left the boat, but since it was only one leg and became wet only to the knee, while the other leg and the rest of me stayed in the boat, I do not believe this qualifies as falling out.
I subscribe to the philosophy that any exit in which my hair remains dry qualifies as a controlled-exit from the watercraft.
I did not get a picture of the crab.
After that incident, though, I did get a picture of a pelican in flight.
We also saw the second dolphin of the day off in the distance.
On the way back, the kids took a disturbingly close look at the mangroves.
Of course I actually use a far more remote patch of mangrovesthere was nothing out of the ordinary for them to see.Back through the canal, now much more crowded with fishermen, and saw the third dolphin of the day off-shore as we loaded the car – or, more probably, saw the first one of the day again, but still good to see.
* I call all of the girl-child’s female friends her Little Friend and the males are referred to as her Little Boy Friend. I do this for two reasons: first, it saves me the trouble of trying to remember names; and, B, it annoys her to no-end. Yes, I’m lazy and cruel.
** The Mangrove Story is intended solely as an amusing anecdote and does not constitute an admission of guilt or any knowledge whatsoever about missing teenage boys who’ve hung out with my daughter.
Honeymoon Island
I had a bit of a later start than I planned this morning, due mostly to a muttered “oh, hell, no” and slap at the alarm clock around 0-dark-thirty.
Once up, though, I loaded the car and hit the road for Dunedin, FL, stopping just twice:
- Subway for breakfast and lunch – their new breakfast is pretty good, easily in the top five of semi-fast-food, after Panera, Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A, and the cheapest of the four. Quite a bit above McDonald’s or Burger King. Plus you can pick up a cooler-friendly lunch at the same time.
-
The Best Buy in Dunedin to pick up an iPhone battery. Yes, I know you can’t replace the battery in them. I was looking for either a solar charger or charger that uses regular batteries, because I’ve been using the iPhone as my GPS tracker on trips (safely ensconced in the deck bag, of course), but the GPS eats battery life. What I found was this thing from Energizer that works as an external rechargeable battery:
So far, so good – it ran the iPhone for GPS tracking over four hours today and the phone still had a full charge.
A good put-in to paddle either Honeymoon Island or nearby Caladesi is from the Dunedin Causeway.
View Dunedin Causeway in a larger mapView Dunedin Causeway Put In in a larger map
You can enter the state park on Honeymoon Island, but the portage from parking lot to beach is a lot longer than on the causeway:
Of course I still haven’t repaired the seat padding that blew off, so I had to improvise an
ass-padcushion.All in all a folded towel is okay, except for the part where it gets saturated and you sit around in salt-water all day … but the Tarpon’s a wet boat anyway, so I didn’t really notice.
My goal today was to circumnavigate Honeymoon Island then paddle around St. Joseph Sound on the east side of Caladesi. With the late start and the stops, I only managed the first half of that.
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The weather forecast called for the winds to be out of the ESE between 8 and 12 MPH, so I started my trip on the east side of the island (going counterclockwise), putting the wind and waves at my back and quarter for the first part of the trip.
I did have to paddle into the stronger wind for the latter part of the trip down the west side of the island, but it was a much shorter distance to face that than the east would have been. You can see from the GPS track that I was a lot slower on the West side, especially when I got far enough south to be out of the lee of the island.
I passed near Grassy Key on my way north, a small mangrove island.
Most of the southeast portion of Honeymoon is mangrove also, with no beaches or stopping places.
It’s not until you round the northernmost headland of mangroves that the shore begins to offer places to beach.
I stopped three times on the east side of the island.
The first stop was because I had to pee. I know, TMI, but under the Florida sun: If you don’t have to pee, you’re not drinking enough. Something Florida paddlers should keep in mind. I also picked up about a dozen cans and bottles at this stop to dispose of properly.
The second stop was because I thought I remembered there being an easy portage spot there – clearly I was mistaken, since that stop was at about the widest part of that portion of the island. So much for my memory.
And the third stop was because an osprey had perched on very low post.
The wind and waves were driving me right to the beach at the base of this short dune, so I was able to keep still and exit the boat out of his site. This let me get a lot closer for a picture.
The north end of Honeymoon is roped off and signed as restricted to protect nesting birds. The sandbar there is also a gathering spot for the feathered ones.
Rounding the north end of the island presents you with a view of the open Gulf.
The ocean-side of Honeymoon should be considered an open-water paddle. Unlike the sheltered sound to the east, the west-side can get the full force of wind, waves and currents. A basic understanding of currents and tides is helpful and you should be comfortable having nothing on one side of you until Mexico.
The combination today was a light wind out of the south and a moderate swell out of the south. Since I had to go south, this made the second half of today’s paddle more challenging. But I find swells easier to handle than the chop the wind was kicking up on the east side, so I’m glad I went counterclockwise today.
The northern beaches on Honeymoon are the farthest from the parking lots, so they’re not very crowded.
But this changes as you head south.
I saw only one dolphin on this trip, that just as I was turning east around the south end of the island. I wasn’t able to get a picture, because he only surfaced twice, both times quickly and heading north.
I pulled onto the beach at the very southern tip of the island, just before the channel and crossing to Caladesi, where I had a quick lunch. As soon as I had my sandwich in hand, this guy showed up to try mooching a bite.
His presence also irritated a couple other gulls who were busy with the preliminaries to seagull sex.
After lunch, I crossed the channel to the Caladesi side.
But I decided to call it a day and head for the causeway and home.
A Quick Trip at Haulover
I had some time this afternoon and decided to run over to Haulover Canal for a quick paddle.
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I started from the large landing area at the west end of the canal.
Took the canal east under the bridge and out into open water for a short way.
The water’s eroded small sea-caves in the bank, visible at low tide.
There appeared to be a single manatee at the observation platform, but it was very close to shore, so no good pictures. But once onto open water, you have to ask yourself: Is there a better place to be on a Florida afternoon?
Outside the shelter of the canal, the wind was just a little east of south, so had a full six-mile fetch to work up the waves.
So after about a mile of paddling straight into the wind, I turned around and headed back to the canal. Is it a bad sign when the buzzards start circling your boat?
Back in the canal, still no good manatee pictures, but I did find a dolphin enjoying himself.
And churning up quite a wake from under the surface.
And managed to get a little bit of video of him:
Since I had to be home by eight, it was time to pull the boat out and head back. At an hour one way to get there from my house, I spent more time in the car than on the water … it’s a fair trade.
North Tampa Bay
This is actually a trip I took last summer (2007) and it wasn’t even a real paddling trip.
I was going to be in Tampa for a week to attend technical training, so I threw the boat on top of the car in hopes I could get some time on the water — I managed to get about an hour a day at lunch and a couple hours each evening by just putting in off the causeway at the extreme northern end of Tampa Bay. The class location was nearby and my hotel was right on the water, so it was convenient:
There’s a boat ramp about a mile onto the westbound causeway where I put in. If you zoom the map in close enough in satellite-view, you can see that the part of the bay north of the causeway looks like dry land with canals:
It’s actually water, but it’s so shallow outside the boat channel that it looks like land on the imagery.
This is a pleasant area to paddle in — well-sheltered from the wind and there are some nice houses on the canals if you paddle to the Northeast, but what made this trip special was the dolphins.
When I was done with my first paddle, just as I was strapping the kayak to the top of the car, a pod of dolphins came up the channel past the boat ramp. I said some bad words about how if I’d just stayed out ten minutes longer, I’d have been coming back right through them when they arrived.
The next day, I tried to time my trip so I’d be on the water while the tide was in about the same state it had been when the dolphins arrived and, sure enough, they showed. I was able to spend about an hour on the water, with dolphins occasionally surfacing all around me, sometimes close enough that I could have touched them with the paddle.
Unfortunately, I only had my cellphone for a camera and its shutter speed was too slow to get good pictures:
For the week I was there I went out every day and dolphins were there at the same tide-state. I assume there was some food source coming out of the mangroves on the tide that brought them there.I felt very privileged to be on the water with these beautiful creatures all around me. There were a few of them breaching, which I wish I’d been able to get a picture of, because it’s a far more impressive show from the water-level than at a marine park.
