Day #88 – Kayaking

Bradenton, FL

It was a beautiful day today with the temperature finally climbing into the 70s. The sun was out, and it wasn’t raining. This is the type of day you expect to see in Florida (the temps are expected to plummet again, but we’ll whine about that when it happens).

Our camp neighbor came out to tease us about the boats on the truck. We haven’t had them in the water since we left Pennsylvania, and he knows it. He said if they didn’t touch water today, everybody would know that they are just for show. We were starting to feel that he might be right, so we were thrilled to give kayaking a go.

We changed into our gear and lugged our boats the short walk to the green, murky waters at the boat ramp. Neither of us was thrilled to get wet, but it is necessary. The water was a bit chilly, but not as cold as we had expected. It was just exhilarating to finally be in the boats. Even more so for Suzie, who has been on paddling restrictions for over a year!

We headed off to the left of the dock and rounded the bend where a family was fishing at the campground. We were greeting by an impatient little red-headed girl tapping her toes and glaring at us to get by so she could throw her line in the water. We said “thanks for waiting” and she crossed her arms, scowled, and said, “Yup”. Tap. Tap. Tap. So we paddled a little faster, and giggled. Around the bend was a Great Blue Heron (http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/great-blue-heron.html) wadding in some tall marsh grasses. It didn’t budge as we got closer, so we had a grand look.

A little further downstream, we saw several turtles sunning themselves on branches and logs. There were so many of them in various sizes all up and down the river. I kept my eyes peeled for alligators, but I just kept seeing turtles. The water was still with very little current, and I wasn’t sure if we were headed downstream, or upstream. I knew this was Suzie’s first time out in a long time, so I suggested we turn around just in case we were downstream. I didn’t want her to have a difficult paddle on the way back. We turned around, and I really couldn’t tell the difference in the paddle difficulty.

The river (more like a stream) wasn’t very wide, and we were starting to see some boat traffic. I suggested we head off along a little “path” in the grasses where we first spotted the Great Blue Heron. We slowly made our way through the grasses, and I began to frantically look for alligators. I really wanted to see it before it saw me. More accurately, I was afraid of waking up a sleeping gator. I didn’t want to startle one, and have it attack us. As I’m working myself mentally up into a small frenzy, the grasses to my right become very active! I hear this crunching and feel this lump swim under my boat. I paddle backwards as hard and fast as I can, and run into Suzie who has no clue what is going on. “Move, move, move!” I scream. She does, and I see this huge mass, swimming under my boat and coming toward me. I make out the shape now… a huge turtle trying to get out of MY way. Apparently I woke it up and scared the bejezus out of it.

Suzie laughed at me and we cautiously followed the trail a little farther. It opened up about 50 feet later and was gorgeous and unspoiled. We wanted to spend more time, but had to turn around and head back because we had dinner plans with a friend. I’m really looking forward to our next paddle. We had such a good time!