courtesy of Google images
We typically travel abroad every other year for an extended period of time. 2018 is the in-between year, so I figured we knock off some domestic bucket list items. I’ve never been to Niagara Falls, so Upstate New York and Toronto are our destinations this May and June. Hope we see views like this! Stay tuned.
river view out the front door
manatee art
manatee
Hellooooo!
Swamp chicken: Who can stay on longest without getting dunked?
today’s river record: seven
cormorants bookends
Marcus and I had only tried kayaking once before–twelve years ago at a resort in Jamaica. Our backs hurt so badly after ten minutes of sitting in the molded plastic seats, we returned the kayaks to the beach and hobbled back to our lounge chairs.
So many of our friends rave about kayaking. I’ve watched people in kayaks in the Indian River Lagoon in Stuart, and I’ve envied the way they silently slip in and out of the mangrove islands watching wildlife undisturbed. How is it that everyone can sit in those boats for hours except us? I began to suspect that maybe it wasn’t us, it was the cheap for-tourists-only kayaks at the resort.
Fortunately we had the opportunity on this trip to try good kayaks. Our friends, Dan and Nancy, live on a little piece of paradise on the Withlacoochee River in Inglis, just north of Crystal River. They are avid kayakers and offered to let us try theirs in the peace and quiet of their backyard river. Well, I thought, if we don’t find their kayaks comfortable, then it is us!
I was a little apprehensive, however. I had never paddled any kind of boat on my own. Marcus had always been on board to help me out, if I should find myself headed backward downriver toward a waterfall, for example. But this was a one-person craft; I’d be on my own. Fortunately Dan and Nancy are extremely patient teachers and did just about everything but paddle for me–adjusting the foot rests to fit, easing me into and out of the river, and following me upriver and back like protective parental ducks taking their offspring on her first swim. I was in good company!
It was a blast–all twenty minutes of it! Dan and Nancy gave us the option of going on a longer journey downriver after our trial run, but we opted for their pontoon boat so we could go farther and see more–and so we could perfect our paddling strokes in the privacy of our own lagoon! I felt like a baby moose trying to stand on gawky legs for the first time. The paddle was everywhere except where I wanted it to be! How does one gracefully apply this oversized appendage toward something resembling movement?
We’ll seek out further kayaking opportunities at home and get that paddling down to an art. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
manatee sighting at Kings Bay Park, Crystal River
On a whim, we drove to Kings Bay Park in downtown Crystal River to see if there were any manatees hanging around. It was a chilly morning. Maybe there would be some stragglers who weren’t on their way out to the gulf yet. Several dive boats full of tourists in wetsuits and snorkel gear were prowling Kings Bay looking for manatees as well. Suddenly a large manatee surfaced at the dock we were standing on, practically under our feet.
“Don’t point at it!” I whispered urgently to Marcus as his arm naturally began to extend.
“What? Why?” he asked.
“I don’t want those boats to see you pointing, or they’ll head over here to have a look and scare him away.”
We kept our arms, and our first wild manatee, to ourselves for just a few moments longer.
a cute little guy wearing the floor of the bay on his back!
