Ahead of time I had spoken with my friend Ian who lives in the middle of the state (Winter Haven) to see if he was interested in kayaking around over the holiday weekend. He was ALL in for Black Friday.
I woke up and as it was the night before a fairly brisk NW wind was honking. It was aimed directly toward our launch point from the other side of the river (over a mile away) and there are waves breaking on the beach lol. I hopped on my bike and scouted out a more protected launch point and talked to the lady who is habitating that campsite. She was nice and said sure you can launch here. Phew! I figure it'll save at least 15 min of upwind paddling.
I head back and have breakfast and blow up the SUP/Kayak (dual purpose).
The little fish hook at the bottom was my boo-boo when we put in. I went about 50ft and realized it dead ended on the road you drive in to the island on (pretty sure its fill in the mangrove as it's surrounded on both sides by wet thick Red Mangroves.
We stayed tucked in behind the first little island and then headed up to the first point. We then traversed toward the big island to hide in its lee (not this paddler's first rodeo in strong wind (looking at JT here!). As we crossed you will see point 1. Our first dolphin sighting. The number spots show all our dolphin sightings for the paddle. There were TONS of birds, pelicans, ospreys, sea gulls, herons, etc. The dolphin was feeding and didn't look full grown (teen). I tried to edge toward it slowly, but they kept their distance but didn't run off.
Lucy and I didn't have a dry bag so no phones, but Ian brought his. We consulted the map once or twice, but he only took one pic the whole trip......
To my best guess this is looking NE, but hard to tell. I think is close the first dolphin sighting. He told me he was sorry he didn't take more but was caught up in nature's splendor and didn't think about it. I give him a pass on this as he used to live in Pittsburgh.
We then traversed north to a dead end (another quick map consult and saw another (or same) dolphin at spot 3. and we found the little creek to a pond opening. We circled around in there and headed out.
Probably saw the same dolphin at spot 4 and headed west hugging the north close to shore to avoid wind. When we got to the entrance on the creek we paddled past it into some waves (close to a foot high), turned and let the wind blow us into the creek. The wind was funneling through the trees here so all I had to do was steer and we zipped through past a couple of guys fishing.
We popped and headed a short bit to a sandbar and little beach on the circular island on the left. We pulled up and took a break and got out and splashed around in the shallow water for a few minutes. We took this time to look across and calculate our vector for the wind across to the campground. I aimed for a spot 3-4 sites north of ours (in case the wind carried us further as it was still blowing very briskly). As we go closer I let off and let the wind blow us right to our spot. Easy paddle with a 15+ tailwind! Total paddling time was around an hour 45.
We beached 50ft from our RV and dragged them out, hosed everything off and discussed our successful adventures. Ian loaded up in short order and was off as he had other engagements.
Naya and Coral had gone shopping and arrived back a short time later. The clouds rolled in and by sunset it was drizzling just enough that no one wanted to be outside. No fire, indoor cooking and discussions at the table. Was an early evening but I was tired from the paddle so it was all good...
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