A Perfect Beach Day on a Perfect Beach, St. Joseph Peninsula State Park FL (April 11, 2014)

The Place 

 As you travel East and South along the Gulf Coast from Panama City, Florida, you enter an area the locals call the Forgotten Coast.  Gone are the high-rise hotels and condos, the franchise eateries, and beach souvenir shops.  What is left are small towns, sugar white sand beaches, and emerald green waters.  Nestled along the Forgotten Coast are 3 Florida State Parks (St. Andrews, St. Joseph Peninsula, and St. George Island) that are anything but forgotten.  They book up 11 months in advance – the earliest that people can make a reservation. 

 

Year after year adventuresome campers flock here for the serenity, the natural beauty, and the sense of timelessness.  We were able to get 2 consecutive nights at St. Joseph Peninsula, but spent the first night in one campsite and moved to another campsite for the next night.  Saturday morning we put our name on a waiting list to see if a spot that was reserved will be vacated early and thus be available for us.

The Adventure

The morning dawned clear and warm with a very gentle breeze.  We took the kayaks down to the beach and (at long last) put our kayaks into the actual Gulf of Mexico.  It was glorious.  We paddled along the shoreline, looking at pristine white beaches.  The water was green and just a little cloudy.  At one point, we found ourselves in the middle of a pod of 6 bottlenose dolphins.  One was a baby.  They gently fed around us, passing by us so closely we could hear them breathe and we could identify one with a scarred dorsal fin.

After lunch we returned to the beach.  Russ swam and Dana waded.  We sat watching the quiet waves lap the shore and nodded off to sleep in the sun.  A Perfect Beach Day!

 The Other Adventure

Early in the morning, Dana bicycled down to the Ranger Station.  On the way back she passed a small grassy area with 7 deer and 6 cattle egrets.  It was the first time she had seen a cattle egret.  The deer would nudge them out of the way with their noses.  The egrets would walk one or two steps away.  The deer would graze over to them again and would nudge them again.  None of the 13 animals were concerned that Dana was 20 feet away madly taking pictures with her phone.  It is that kind of place.

Kayaking at Dauphin Island AL (March 31 - April 2, 2014)

The Place

It seems that a lot of the people who stay here every winter (for the past 4-10 years) currently have or have had kayaks in the past.  So we asked them, where do you put in, where do you paddle?  Some of the spots were too far away for us, because we don’t have a car with us.  But, one of the spots was right across the street from our campground. 

So, we blew up the kayaks, loaded them on their carts, and took them to a small sandy beach right next to the ferry dock.  That beach leads to a waterway between Dauphin Island and Little Dauphin Island.  Little Dauphin Island is a narrow spit of sand with some scrub on it, salt marshes surrounding it in some places and waterfowl perched on top of it.  It is a wildlife sanctuary and you aren’t allowed to land and walk around on it.

We had beautiful, sunny 80 degree weather, so we were able to go on a bunch of kayak explorations.

The Adventures

Trip 1.  On Monday, we headed out alongside Little Dauphin Island.  It was a breezy day.  The wind was behind us and the current was with us, so we fairly sped our way up the island.  Those of you who boat will have already guessed, when we returned we were into the wind and against the current.  The trip back was a lot more difficult. 





Notable from that trip, we saw two American Oystercatcher birds.  We’ve not seen them here before, with their distinctive red bill.

Trip 2.  On Tuesday, there was a bit more breeze.  We decided to head into the wind this time, so we could work hard on the trip out, and coast on the way back.  We turned right and headed out into Mobile Bay with the intention of going around the end of Dauphin Island and into the Gulf of Mexico. 

On the way out we passed the Ferry, a small commercial dock, and the Sea Lab dock with its research vessels.  As soon as we got out of the more sheltered waters, we hit chop and rolling waves.  Guess it was windier than we thought.  We made it around to the end at Fort Gaines before turning back.  (The picture from that trip was included as part of the post about Fort Gaines.)  Yes, the ride back was a lot speedier than the paddle out.

Trip 3.  On Wednesday, the breeze had changed direction.  We decided to go back along the passage between the two islands, but this time we would hug the shore by Dauphin Island, explore the little inlets, and look at the nice houses.   The houses were pretty and varied.  Most of them are on stilts or a pedestal in case of flooding.  All of them had docks and sea walls.  Only 1 or 2 had tiny sand beaches.   

We also spent some time in a salt marsh near the beach where we put in.

We talked to one couple fishing off their dock about the heron that was standing watch waiting for a handout as they fished.  He comes every day.  However, on that day he had been late and another bird had gotten the handout.  He was expectant anyway.  As we were gliding along in another inlet we passed close by what we thought was a statue of a heron, until he turned his head and looked at us.  We also saw the now familiar sight of pelicans on dock pilings.

A Close Encounter with Bottlenose Dolphins, Grand Isle LA (March 21, 2014)

We’ll just start with the punch line, Dana’s kayak got nudged/hit/pushed/rammed by a bottlenose dolphin this afternoon. 

The Place

It would be hard to get much further south in Louisiana than Grand Isle, an island sitting in the Gulf of Mexico.  In fact, you cross a 7 mile long toll bridge to get here.  At the Eastern-most tip of the island is Grand Isle State Park where we are staying.  More about that in another post, because you REALLY want to hear about the dolphins, don’t you…

The Adventure 

This afternoon we took our kayaks out on the “Lagoon” side of the park.  After a brief portage around a breakwater shown in this pelican picture, the lagoon fed into a huge shipping channel around the end of the island. 

While we were paddling around, we noticed a group of dolphins feeding in the distance. The fish they were chasing must have been coming in our direction, because suddenly there were 8 of them all around us.  You could hear them breathing each time they surfaced.  They were quite large, easily 10 feet long.

Two of them jumped out of the water (one from the left and one from the right) and crossed in front of each other about 25 feet in front of us.  This really startled us.  Then they did it again! 

In this picture, you see the yellow of Dana’s boat in the corner and the back of a dolphin right next to the boat, and the fin of the dolphin behind it. That is how close they were.

Suddenly, 2 dolphins must have been chasing the same fish.  They came right toward Dana’s kayak.  One submerged and swam under, the other didn’t and hit the bow before submerging.  It was a gentle tap.  

They stayed around us for about 30 minutes.  They were still there when we decided to go in.

Amazing!

Russ in the Lagoon