Jennifer, the always wonderful Mom that she is, gave me a hall pass last Sunday to take advantage of a couple hours of the perfect kayaking weather in Florida right now.
I dumped the boat in around 6:45 in the Banana River (second body of water you pass over between our house and the beach) and paddled North. The relatively cool water temps still keep things quiet in the morning. Think about how motivated you are to get out of a warm bed into the cold house at the crack of dawn. Fish are no different. They all stay put until the sun climbs and gets the flats "heater" turned on. So, I was ready for long paddle and didn't mind that there was little to fish for in the first couple hours. There's always so much to see in the Lagoon. This time of year we become the equivalent of the Miami Airport, but for bird immigration. Thousands of birds flying overhead all morning long. The greatest show was a covey of ducks that had a white underbelly with black top wings. They don't glide well, so there is rapid flapping. The sun was just right so when they opened their wings, they blended into the sky and disappeared. On the down flap the black wing flashed. There were probably 500 birds and you can imagine the sight. It was sparkling.
I was lucky to paddle past a couple of white pelicans, strange visitors to the Space Coast. Their smaller cousins, the grey variety, are most common and always around. The much larger whites are common 30 miles to the South, but we are definitely a N boundary for the bird. Don't get your global warming ire up. Although they are rare, they've been taking spring vacations to our waters for many years.
Next came the largest school of manatee I've ever seen. Must have been 30 of them eating the seagrass and generally just hanging out. Fun to sit and watch until one curious, 200# mammal bumped my kayak....makes you remember how small you are. Gentle creatures can still unnerve you. I spent most the rest of the morning enjoying watching others fish, something mesmerizing about watching the rhythm of a couple fly fisherman wind and throw. Flats boats poled along the shore, mostly just scaring up stingrays and puffer fish (always plentiful in the river). I paddled back as the wind started to pick up. I hit one of my favorite canals, and as usual there were schools of small seatrout patrolling the docks. Unfortunately, a pair of dolphin made reservations for the same restaurant that morning. I couldn't get more than two into the boat before they showed up and wrecked the buffet. Is is fairly amazing to watch two dolphin corner a school of fish and chow down. They, like their friends the manatee, made some curiously close runs by my kayak to let me know seating for people is limited at this location. I managed a couple more fish and headed home. Good call as the wind picked up again and paddling became work. As many of you always hear, fishing is so much more than catching fish. Days like this one move the purchase of a boat way up on the priority list. The only improvement to the morning would have been sharing it with the boys.
What an amazing day.
1 comment:
All the girls were oooooh-ing and aaah-ing wishing they could have shared the morning with you. We have studied sea creatures this year in science so getting to see manatees and dolphins would have been especially fun. We hoped when we went to the beach at Christmas we would have seen some creatures but didn't see really any but some crabs. Thomas and I did enjoy kayaking around the island.
Just this week there was a news article on the web about girls canoeing to school father south in the Philippines. A 23 ft. crocodile upset the canoe and decapitated one of the girls. The floating school has been closed and the villagers living in the houses on stilts on that lake have been evacuated. In December, our family had taken a canoe across the water, not quite as far south in the country as this story, but still scary thought! Any crocodiles, where you kayak?
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