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Category: honeymoon island
Saint Joseph Sound Spoil Islands
December in Florida. On the water at 11:30, clear blue skies and 72-degrees.
This was a trip to visit the spoil islands in Saint Joseph Sound to pick one for camping in a few weeks. Spoil islands are the result of dredging channels – the material dredged from the bottom of the channel is loaded on a barge and the barge is periodically dumped to the side of the channel.
This results in evenly spaced islands (or bars if there wasn’t enough material) along the line of the channel. In this case there are six islands about a half mile apart running north of the Dunedin-Honeymoon Island causeway. The channel continues to the north, but the islands stop – the northern dump sites didn’t rise to the level of islands.
(open in Google Earth)
(7 miles – 3:30)There’s a lot of rock and oyster shell around the causeway and islands, much of it exposed at low tide, which is when I arrived to put in. The oyster shell will tear up a boat faster even than rock, so don’t drag your boat over it. Also watch your step, as it’ll slice your feet up just as easily.
I set course for the first island in the chain and started off. Getting there from where I put in on the causeway meant crossing the boat channel. I always laugh at kayakers who start talking about marine law and right-of-way regarding powered boats. In my book, right-of-way goes to who won’t wind up as flotsam and chum after the collision, so I always make sure the channels are clear for a long ways before trying to cross.
This is not clear enough:
The reason we wait until it’s completely clear, of course, is because no matter how well the day’s going, no matter how swift your stroke is … dead center of the channel will be the spot your cooler decides to slide off the back deck of the boat and become a sea anchor. Did this happen today? Of course it did. This is why I want a new boat.
On some of the islands, local conservation groups are busily at work replacing non-native vegetation. While I can agree with this in principal, I still think the Australian pines just look better than native growth.
The first and second islands north of the causeway have rock fire pits and cleared areas suitable for camping. The second is larger and someone has brought in a picnic table.
Both were nicely free of trash, with only a few cans or bottles around. Most of these had already been placed in the fire pits.
On the first island, though, there’s clearly a “bathroom” area that some people aren’t following “leave no trace” in.
If you can’t handle packing it out, then stay somewhere there’s a toilet.
The third island north of the causeway is an Audubon sanctuary, so landing is not permitted. The fourth was inaccessible during my trip due to the tide – exposed rock and oyster shell made landing a bad idea.
Island five had a little surprise in store for me. The low tide exposed a spit of sand and an odd looking rock that turned out to be this little guy:
Not every day that you see one of these on the beach.
The last island in the chain is small and rocky, with only a few scrub trees for cover.
Even so, if the weather forecast is good, it will probably be my choice for camping, because it’s isolated and well-positioned as a base. From here, it’s only two miles to either Honeymoon (red) or the bars north of Honeymoon (green), and from them it’s only another two miles to Anclote (blue).
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.
GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com
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.
