Dwarf Cypress in Tate’s Hell, Tupelo Honey in Wewahitchka, and Other Stuff [April 10 – 30, 2023]

Water Lilly's in Tate's Hell

Tate’s Hell [April 10, 2023]

 

We have mentioned before that the Forgotten Coast is quiet and relatively undeveloped with small towns and “Mom and Pop” businesses.  Several of the reasons it isn’t developed like the rest of the Florida Panhandle coastline are Apalachicola National Forest and Tate’s Hell State Forest.  Tate’s Hell is more swamp than forest, and serves as a green buffer to the adjacent bays and marshes.

 

Overlooking the Dwarf Cypress

Legend has it that Tate’s Hell gets its name from a local farmer, Cebe Tate, who went into the swamp searching for a panther that was killing his livestock.  He got lost, was bitten by a snake (species unspecified in the legend but they do have Coral Snakes here), drank the swamp water, and wandered around the forest for days.  Finally, he came into a clearing near Carrabelle and lived long enough to say “My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell!”

 

Dwarf Cypress trees

In the middle of Tate’s Hell is a sizable grove of 300-hundred-year-old Dwarf Cypress (sometimes called Hat Rack Cypress) trees that grow no more than 6-15 feet tall; most Cypress trees grow 50-80 feet tall.  They say that the tree growth might be stunted because of an underlying layer of clay and low-nutrient soil in that area, but they aren’t really sure.

 

Boardwalk above the trees

There is a boardwalk up to an observation platform where you stand above the tallest tree and look out over the top of this interesting grove.

 

Bee hives in Tate's Hell

Tate’s Hell is home to many wild animals, including bears who are sometimes seen in town or along the road.  Along our drive through the swamp to reach the Dwarf Cypress grove we passed several banks of bee hives surrounded by electrified fences, perhaps to keep out the bears?  We had heard that bee keepers in this area move their hives to locations when particular trees are blooming.  Perhaps that is what we were seeing.

 

Tupelo Honey

Wewahitchka [April 24, 2023]

 

Tupelo Honey is a delicious, rare and special honey made from the nectar of flowering Tupelo trees.  This part of Florida is where most of the Tupelo Honey comes from.  Tupelos live in swamps among Cypress trees.  Beekeepers load their hives onto barges and float them under the flowering trees.  The Tupelo blossoms are very fragile and are easily damaged by weather.  Tupelo honey season can last for 3 weeks, or just for a few days.

 

The center for Tupelo Honey-making is Wewahitchka, Florida a few miles north of the smaller town of Honeyville.  We visited the Smiley Honey Co. to learn more about Tupelo Honey.  They purchase raw honey from the beekeepers and store it in large cans.  Then they pump the honey into a vat where it is warmed just enough to flow freely (but not so hot as to kill the beneficial elements) through a filter and into containers on a hand-operated machine.  Another employee manually affixes labels to the containers.  Then the product is packaged to be mailed to you the online purchaser.

 

Vintage 2020 Barrel Aged Tupelo Honey

The folks at Smiley Honey Co are experimenting with aging Tupelo Honey in a retired bourbon whiskey barrel.  They let us taste it out of the barrel (we used clean spoons).  It was delicious!  We ordered some to be sent to us after it was bottled at the end of the week.  We are open to suggestions of ways we can eat it…

 

We visited the Smiley Honey Co. a few days after the bees were placed among the Tupelo trees.  Since then, we have had two days of heavy rain and two other days of high winds.  We hope the weather has not adversely affected this year’s honey harvest.

 

You can find out more about the Smiley Honey Co by clicking here.  They sell many types of honey in addition to the Tupelo, as well as beauty aids created from beeswax.

 

Our campsite at Carrabelle Beach RV Resort

We have camped at Carrabelle Beach RV Resort for the past two weeks, across the street from a beautiful long white sand beach.  Every morning, we take Schooner for long sunrise walks where she can swim, retrieve her fetching dummy, and run around on the empty beach.  Here is a video of Schooner one beautiful morning.

 

Tomorrow we start our journey home.  We’ve had a wonderful adventure these past 8 weeks.  We started out wearing our winter coats and gloves on the windy beaches of North Carolina and have finished up basking in the hot Florida sun. 

Cape San Blas bright white beach and green water

Kayaking St. George State Park

In case you ever wondered if pelicans drag their fingers in the water as they fly over

A Lighthouse and an Historic Fort – St. Marks, Florida [April 22, 2023]

 

2nd oldest and "most photographed" lighthouse in Florida

Back in the day, St. Marks was the 5^th largest city in Florida.  Farmers from North Florida and South Georgia exported their cotton and other crops by ship from there to New Orleans and Key West.  To protect the busy commerce, a lighthouse was built to mark the entrance to the St. Marks River.  Shipping dropped off after the Civil War, when goods could be moved more efficiently by railroad.  Today, St. Marks is a tiny town near where the St. Marks River and the Wakulla River meet with a few marinas and a busy boat ramp.  The written history of St Marks starts with the Spanish Conquistadors in 1528.  We visited St. Marks Lighthouse and the San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park.

 

Our first view of the lighthouse, driving through the Refuge

Saint Marks Wildlife Refuge

St. Marks Lighthouse is in the lovely St. Marks Wildlife Refuge.  You travel about 10 miles through the Refuge past wetlands and ponds to reach the lighthouse located right on the water.  We visited on a Saturday when the lightkeepers home was open and staffed with volunteers.  It being the weekend, the refuge was teeming with bird watchers, particularly at one pond where we were told an owl had taken over an eagles nest, and her little fluffy owlets had hatched.

 

Pretty, pretty lighthouse

Lightkeepers office window where the keepers looked out to verify that the light was shining

The lighthouse was originally established in 1830.  It was relocated and rebuilt several times during its history.  It currently stands just a few feet from the waters edge.  What makes this lighthouse unique to us is that the lightkeepers home was built integral to the lighthouse itself and has walls 4 feet thick, as does the lighthouse.  The keepers home has been rebuilt several times, after being destroyed by (among other things) hurricanes, storm surge and burning by Union soldiers during the Civil War.  No one could tell us why the builders chose to build such thick walls.  We think that they would have kept the occupant’s cooler during the scorching Florida summer before air conditioning.  Also interesting, the keeper office had a little window which the keeper used to check that the light was shining out over the water.

 

Live Oak tree is so big that it almost obscures the lighthouse from this vantage point

150 year old Live Oak Tree

Next to the lighthouse is an enormous Live Oak tree.  Originally planted by an early lighthouse keeper, the tree is now about 150 years old.  Photographs of the lighthouse over the years document the growth of the tree.  During Hurricane Michael (which devastated this region in 2018), the tree became encrusted with salt and all of the leaves died.  An arborist recommended taking down the venerable tree because it had died.  They didn’t, and the tree is thriving and beautiful today.

 

Narrow lighthouse stairs

Volunteers open the keepers home about two Saturdays a month.  You can find the schedule on their website.  You can tour the keepers home, but you cannot climb the lighthouse.  The winding wooden stairs are narrow and unsafe.

 

4-foot wide window sill

During the late 1930’s, an all African American CCC corps built the road through the wetlands to the lighthouse, strung electricity to electrify the light, and built dykes to create the ponds that are part of the Refuge today.  Their work is documented at the lighthouse.  We learned in another display there about salt tubs that local folks used during the Union blockade during the Civil War to evaporate salt water to get salt to use for curing food. 

 

San Marcos de Apalache museum built on old fort foundations

Stones from Spanish fort used and reused for different structures over the years

The area was originally inhabited by Apalachee Indians.  Spanish Conquistadors exploring the area in the 1500s were beset by the Indians and also by insect born diseases like Yellow Fever.  In 1679 they built the San Marcos de Apalache fort at the intersection of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers on a small area of dry land in a vast wet landscape. 

 

Civil War earthworks

The fort changed hands many times, housing the Spanish, US, British, Seminole Nation, Confederate, and Union armies.  One use was as a hospital for ailing sailors (most of them had Yellow Fever) for the Navy in 1857.  The groups built and rebuilt the fort, often reusing the same materials.

 

San Marcos de Apalache is now a Florida State Park.  They have a very interesting 18-minute video describing the history of the fort.  Then you can take a self-guided walking tour of the grounds to look at the remnants of stone walls and earthworks.

 

At the lighthouse

Pelicans on Nests and Other Kayaking Adventures – Carrabelle and St Vincent Island National Wildlife Refuge, Florida [April 15 and 18, 2023]

 

Pelicans on nests

We’ve seen (and photographed) pelicans sitting on pilings, bridges and trees.  We have never seen them sitting on nests until we happened upon them during a gloriously sunny and calm kayak on our last morning at Ho Hum RV Park.  The forecast had looked promising for a paddle the night before, so we asked the campground manager if we could be a bit late in vacating our spot the next morning.  She had very generously agreed.

 

Heading out to Lanark Reef (that green strip on the horizon)

A calm day

Lanark Reef is a strip of green with a daymark sign that we saw on the horizon from our campsite at Ho Hum.  It looked close enough to be a good kayaking destination on a windless day, if we would ever get a windless day.  So, on moving day the winds were calm and instead of packing up to move, we threw our kayaks in the water and paddled out ¾ mile to the daymark.

 

Critical Wildlife Area...

Great Egrets in small shrubs

As we approached, sea gulls and terns started screaming and flying up and around us.  So many loud and unhappy birds.  The line of daymarks read “Closed to Public Access”.  Oh, we thought, this has been protected as a sea bird sanctuary...how lovely.  We paddled along the shore, outside of the daymarks.  The din didn’t cease.  We passed a clump of low palmetto plants with Great Egrets standing on them.  Then we came to a ridge with silhouettes of lumps moving their heads, wings, and huge bills.  Pelicans!  Pelicans sitting on nests on the ground! 

 

More pelicans on nests

Still more pelicans on nests

It wasn’t until this point that we realized that this narrow spit of sand was being protected as a rookery.  That was the reason the gulls were screaming at us.  That was why there were so many egrets standing on the (short) tallest plants on the island.  That was why there were hundreds of pelicans all jumbled together in one place.  What a special happenstance for us!

 

Egrets

We paused quietly and soaked in the moment.  Gradually, the seagulls gave up and the noise level returned to the constant chortle of a rookery. 

 

So many pelicans on nests

In an earlier blog post, we mentioned the many pelicans that we saw diving into the water to fish in front of our campsite.  Ahhhh, the rookery is why we had such an abundance of pelicans.

 

Returning home

You’ll be happy to know that we returned to the campground, finished packing and got out of our campsite just an hour late, and before the next folks arrived to move in.  Phew!  We moved a whopping 5 miles down the road to Carrabelle Beach RV Resort across from a glorious white sand beach - but more about that later.

 

Happy kayakers on a windy day - Dana's chin strap is keeping her hat from blowing off

A pelican fly by

We had made two paddles earlier on windy days with rough seas.  We mentioned the first one in a previous post.  Here are photos of the second paddle.  It had been calm when we started out, but the wind kicked up as we were paddling.  St. George Sound is a protected body of water with barrier islands bearing the brunt of the wave motion in the Gulf of Mexico.  However, wind is wind and it can make for tough paddling.

 

St. Vincent Island National Wildlife Refuge

 

At Indian Pass boat ramp

We returned to the Forgotten Coast this Spring with a list of adventures that we hadn’t quite gotten to the year before.  One of those adventures was to go out to St. Vincent Island, one of the four barrier islands that protect this section of coastline.  Preserved as a wildlife sanctuary, you can only reach the island by boat.  We could take the St. Vincent Island shuttle across the ¼ mile Indian Pass or … we could paddle out in our kayaks.  The forecast was for calm winds, so we put our kayaks on the roof of our little car and headed to Indian Pass about an hour away.

 

Looking across at St. Vincent Island

We knew there would be a strong current with the outgoing tide.  But, the calm winds we anticipated were, in fact, a bit stronger than forecast and coming from the beach where we wanted to land.  There was a “Yellow” beach flag (meaning rough but not life-threatening conditions) flying at the boat ramp when we arrived. 

 

St. Vincent Island shoreline

It was a strenuous “¼ mile” paddle heading into the wind and waves, going beyond our destination, to then drift back to our landing spot.

 

The island was very quiet and peaceful.  We walked down one of the roads in the interior of the island.  There was evidence of trees that had died and been sawed down, perhaps in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael that devastated this region in 2018.  There were also charred tree trunks from prescribed controlled burns.  We saw a little blue heron and a woodpecker (too far away to identify). 

 

We ate our picnic lunch perched on the sterns of our kayaks, and headed back across Indian Pass.  This time, the crossing was easy.  We were carried by the current with the wind pushing us from behind.  On the way home, we stopped at the Indian Pass Raw Bar for a plate of oysters for Russ and BBQ sandwich for Dana.  It was a two lunches kind of day!

Here is a movie of the pelican rookery.  This is what we first saw.  Those silhouetted “lumps” are pelican heads, bills and wings.  Zoom in (if you can) to see them move.  Note the rookery noise in the background.

Here is a movie of narrow, low and noisy Lanark Reef.  

Here is a movie of our abundance of pelicans - taken from our campsite. 

Alligators and Other Critters – Wakulla Springs State Park Jungle Boat Tour [April 12, 2023]

 

Yup, they have lots of alligators in Florida, and tourists love looking at them!  Wakulla Springs is a beautiful State Park focused on the largest, deepest, and most prolific Spring in Florida.  Alligators live in the Wakulla River that is formed by the Spring.  Back in the day, they used to provide glass bottom boat tours so you could see the opening of the Spring (the equivalent of 11 stories below), but the water is no longer as crystal clear as it once was so the boat tours nowadays focus on the animals that live along the Spring and River.

 

Our boat leaving the dock and our Ranger guide

Turtles on a log

The Jungle Boat Tour leaves every hour for a 45-minute tour.  Our guide was a folksy park ranger who narrated what we were seeing along the way.  We saw a lot of alligators and baby alligators, and logs lined with turtles.

Submerged Manatee

Common Gallinule or Moor Hen

We also saw three manatee (one was a baby) submerged underwater, and a bunch of Common Gallinules, also known as Moor Hens, with bright red faces.  A big treat for us were the Yellow-Crowned Night Herons (one was sitting on a nest).  These were a first for us and they are beautiful.  Sadly, no photos of these gorgeous birds to share. 

Male Anhinga (black neck and head)

 

Female Anhinga (brown neck and head)

We saw Anhinga’s nesting, fishing, and drying their wings.  We learned to tell the difference between the males (black neck and heads) and females (brown neck and heads).  They hunt by spearing fish with their pointy beaks.

 

Juvenile Ibis

In the old days, before hurricane prediction science, you could tell a hurricane was about to hit because the Ibis’ were the last birds to leave.  Their return meant that the hurricane was over, they were the first to return.  Not much of an early warning system for boarding up your windows, but a cool reminder about the interrelatedness of nature.  The Ibis’ we saw were juveniles losing their protective dark coloring and becoming white.

 

The River

Archeologists believe that they have found the remnants of a prosperous Apalachee Indian city along the banks of the Spring, as well as Paleoindian tools near the Wakulla Springs Lodge itself.  On the boat tour, you can see a field along the side of the River believed to be the location of the city with flags marking where they have found artifacts.

Spider Lilly's along the bank of the River

 

The Park was used to film scenes in several movies including Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (with an alligator wrestling scene – don’t think they used local alligators…), Creature from the Black Lagoon, Airport 77 and Joe Panther. 

 

Russ swimming in the Spring

After the boat tour, We had a picnic lunch overlooking the beautiful spring, and then Russ took a swim in the swimming area over the spring.  We asked our guide how they kept the alligators out of the swimming area, he said that they started training the ‘gators from an early age.  Didn’t inspire confidence…

 

We rode our bikes through the state park last year – here is the link to that blog post. The boat tours are very popular,  you have to make a reservation at least a day in advance. 

 Here is a video of the boat passing a "smiling" alligator.