Fabulous Fort De Soto, St. Petersburg FL [April 18-20, 2016]

Great Blue Heron

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that some of the things we love when we travel are to: camp in natural settings, play on the beach, kayak, watch birds, and play with Tiki.  We found all that in Fort De Soto. 

We traveled to St. Pete by way of the Sunshine Skyway, couldn't resist this photo with the pelican.

Located on a collection of small keys connected by bridges, Fort De Soto sits at the corner of Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.  The islands also form 3 sides of a lagoon called the Mullet Key Bayou, perfect for kayaking.  The campground is set on two keys, with many campsites on the water front, and each site surrounded by dense oak, pine and palmetto forest.

Tiki lovin' the Dog Beach, ready for Russ to throw the ball

And she's off...  Such a happy dog!

Florida is notoriously unwelcoming of dogs, with most beaches off-limits to them.  Fort De Soto has a long dog beach on the Tampa Bay shoreline, where you can hang out on the beach with your dog off-leash and play with your dog in the water.  We went there on our first day and again as we were leaving.  It was tons of fun.  Throughout the park, there is a wide, paved, muti-use trail for pedestrians and bicycles.  It was just a 1.7 mile walk from our campsite to the dog beach and the “Paw Playground”. 

Heron has just caught a fish

 

Getting the fish ready to eat

The second day, we took the kayaks out onto the Mullet Key Bayou.  We came upon a Great Blue Heron as it caught a fish in rather deep water (for a Blue Heron).  We followed as it flew toward the shoreline.  We watched it flip the fish in its bill, drop and retrieve the fish and do other manipulations for more than 2 minutes.  It was a large fish and we aren’t sure why it wasn’t eaten right away – too large? – kill it first? – play with it before eating? –eventually the fish got swallowed whole. 

Russ and his cormorant friend

Can you see the cormorant swimming under the water?

Now the cormorant is on the other side.  Guess it is not afraid of humans...

Later as we kayaked across the Bayou, we were surprised by a cormorant surfacing a few feet from Russ’ kayak.  It dove, swam under his kayak and then surfaced on the other side.  Sometimes it would dive under Dana’s kayak.  It was so close, we could see its blue eyes.  The water was clear enough that we could see it swim under our boats.  After about 15 minutes of watching, we tired of the entertainment and paddled on.  It followed along with us for another 10 or so minutes.  In the course of our time together, our cormorant caught 3 fish, all pretty big compared to the size of the cormorant.  Unlike with the great blue heron, these fish got swallowed right away. 

  

Dolphins!

At another point on the trip, we came upon a pod of dolphins gently feeding.  They swam all around us, but never too close.   

The Beach!!!!!

One day, we threw our towels into our backpacks, hopped on our bicycles and rode to the beach that is along the Gulf of Mexico.  The beach was of fine, white sand, and the Gulf water was cool, clear and a beautiful green color.  It was so lovely to walk and sit on the beach, and to wade and swim in the water.  Dana went to college nearby, and our return to one of the St Pete beaches was very nostalgic for her.

We think this might be a Loon in winter plumage

Great Egret showing off the plumes that were so desirable for ladies hats, and almost decimated the species

Heron in flight

Inching Through Mangrove Thickets – Key Largo [April 15, 2016]

Narrow passage between mangrove keys

 

When we rented kayaks at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the kayak guy said, “If you get in areas too narrow to paddle, just take your paddles apart, and paddle with one side.” He gave us a laminated map and we headed out.

Some passages required using only half of the paddle

Mangrove islands protect the shoreline of Pennekamp Park and Largo Sound from the wave action of the ocean.  In shallow areas, mangrove plants continuously send roots down from their branches toward the sea floor to expand the plant.  Debris catches in these structures and gradually islands or keys develop. 

Russ and the Egret/White Heron

Which is the Egret, which is the Great White Heron?

Black legs = Great Egret

Yellow legs = Great White Heron (as it flew away)

The Pennekamp Canoe Trail takes you along the shoreline of part of Largo Sound and then through canals between these mangrove keys.  Along the edge of Largo Sound, we spent time observing and photographing a Great Egret and a Great White Heron that were wading near each other. 

Cathedral Creek

Most of the passageways between the mangrove islands are very wide and easy to paddle along.  The kayak guy had mentioned that since we were experienced kayakers, we might go through Cathedral Creek.  The creek is so named because the mangroves branches form a peaked roof above you as you paddle through.  The passageway was almost too narrow for half a paddle, so we pulled ourselves along by hand using the branches overhead.  The water was very clear, and as we looked down, we saw tropical fish swimming among the mangrove roots at the edge of the key.  In fact, they were the same fish we had seen the day before when we were snorkeling on the reef; parrotfish, grunts and others.  It was beautiful.

The beginning of Spider Creek - it didn't stay this wide for long!

Spider Creek was another recommendation and came with the instructions to bear left going in, and bear right coming out.  So at every intersection in the channel on our way in, we chose the left channel.  It got narrower and narrower until we had to back out to a place that was wide enough to turn around.

Kayak rental spot

Such a fun and unique kayak experience!

Snorkeling Key Largo [April 14, 2016]

Smooth Trunkfish

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo encompasses 70 nautical square miles.  There are mangrove islands and upland areas, but most of the park is coral reef.  The reefs have been protected since the park was founded in 1963.  Concessions in the park offer Glass Bottom Boat tours, which we took with Dana’s parents and the kids 20+ years ago.  They also offer SCUBA and snorkeling trips.  There are a ton of dive shops outside of the park in Key Largo that will take you to the same sites.  Permanent anchor buoys have been set up at the different sections of reef, and the dive/snorkel boats tie up to those buoys.

Clear blue water - the dark shade is the reef we swam on, the light shade is the sand

One of the Park Rangers in the Everglades had advised us that the snorkeling from out of Pennekamp State Park was better than the snorkeling in Key West.  Having done both, what would we say???  The visibility was much clearer at Pennekamp, and we saw a greater variety of fish.  However, the water was warmer in Key West and the swimming was easier, Pennekamp had small waves and a current that were a little tougher to negotiate.  So it is a toss up!  I would say… go to both places!!!

Our boat

We were on a boat with 15 other snorkelers, and motored out about 35 minutes to the snorkel site they call Grecian Rocks.  The first thing we noticed as we approached the reef was the abundance of soft coral –  sea fans, and sea rods.  We also saw large growths of brain coral. 

View of the reef and the surface from underwater

Among the coral swam many, many small, brightly colored fish.  We are including photos here of ones that we didn't show in the Key West blog post.  AND there were so many fish that we didn't get good photos of. 

Brain Coral

So what are we showing here? The lovely trunkfish has hard sides and is triangular in shape.  It swims by wiggling its tail and fins.  We saw a ton of grunts, mid-sized yellow and blue striped fish.  We got one good photo of one, but they were everywhere.  There were a bunch of aptly named bluehead wrasses, tiny fish with bright blue heads. There were schools of little wrasses with yellow tops and a black stripe; at least we thought they were wrasses, until we couldn't find them in any of our fish books.  And we saw several barracuda...  They weren't very large, but they do look sinister, don't they!

Elliptical Star Coral

Sea Fan

Soft coral

Blue-headed Wrasse

Blue Striped Grunt

Not sure what these are, they look like Wrasses to us

Barracuda!