Silver River Monkey Kayaking Adventure

Since I am writing about past kayaking trips..I have begun to realize how many details can be forgotten over time.  I kept a manual journal for some adventures and I take pictures practically everywhere I go.  If it weren't for the date feature on my photographs I would likely not even remember when some of these trips took place.  We bought my Eddyline kayak in 10/2011..not even a year now and it has gotten a lot of mileage!  The best I can tell from the dates, the Silver River was the first trip I took in it.  

How many monkeys do you spot in this picture?  When I zoomed in, I could find 2.  I wanted to go to Silver River to see the monkeys.  We put in at a park in Ocala..sorry, couldn't tell you what park because I don't remember!  That is why going forward I will post all my trips right after they happen instead of a year later!  We paddled down this river towards the Silver Springs Park..I do remember that.  It was a couple miles of paddling before we spotted the first couple 'posses' of monkeys.  It was hilarious.  They were screeching and carrying on, running up and down the trees..I wanted to get some good pictures but also kept a safe distance from the banks..especially when we spotted the alpha male. 

Admittedly, this trip was quite amazing for me.  I mean, how often do you paddle down a river in the US and look up to see groups of monkeys wandering around, chattering with each other, picking bugs out of their hair, eating, and carrying on about their daily lives.  The Internet holds all kinds of information on these little monkey's origins.  Apparently someone wanted to create a monkey island thinking the monkeys wouldn't swim..many years later.. monkeys now roam wild here.  I believe I read somewhere that biologists are concerned with their presence as they are obviously not part of the native food chain.  

We saw two different groups of monkeys on the water and it was fascinating just to sit in our kayaks and observe them.  The first set of monkeys was actually divided into two groups, one on each side of the river.  They were carrying on at each other and after a few minutes..we noticed several of them running up to the tops of the trees and jumping across the expanse of the river.  This was so entertaining to watch.  As you see from the picture above, a small monkey did not make it across and we watched him to do smack dive into the water from twenty feet up or so.  He was ok and managed to miss the gators..we could've been in for a real National Geographic moment had there been any large ones nearby I suppose.  It was really crazy watching a mom with baby attached to her underside jump across..she made it safely. 

While I did take literally hundreds of monkey pictures, I am an avid nature lover, especially birds, and I managed to capture some other subjects on the river as well.  The gators were relatively small.  The one pictured above in the swampy grass was accompanied by three or four more in the background, all about the same size.  We probably saw a dozen gators or so the length of the trip.  Kayaking in Florida all the time, you lose track of how many gators you have seen on every trip - I can tell you one thing - they aren't endangered in my opinion!

I love the camera my husband bought for me a year ago - a Canon Rebel EOS.  I am just a novice photographer but really enjoy it.  These pictures were taken with my long lens, which has a great zoom but the quality is not as good as my short lens which has image stabilizer.  Also, this was a year ago and I think maybe a year of constantly taking pictures I have gotten a little better.  I initially was never going to take the camera out on the water but I see the most amazing things while kayaking so into a dry bag the camera has gone for every trip since. 

I really hope to have my family visit me one day so I can share this trip with them.  I had pulled a muscle in my shoulder and the trip from the put-in to the Silver Springs attraction and back to the put-in again had me hurting.  I am looking forward to going back one day..maybe we will use a shuttle next time. 

Cedar Key and Atsena Otie

The last night of our mini vacation was spent in Cedar Key.  We left Niceville on Saturday morning, just as a line of thunderstorms was headed our way.  We made it to Nature's Landing Condominiums, right on the water and walking distance to restaurants.  After a bite for lunch we decided to paddle out to an island visible from the shore, Atsena Otie.

I was searching for an earthcache I had loaded from geocaching.com.  According to my Garmin, there was supposed to be a cemetery and a trail.  There were actually two islands, split in the middle with oyster coves.  We stopped inside one of the coves to see if we could walk to the spot marked on my gps marked by the cemetery.  It turned out to be inaccessible swampland, and after getting bit by a yellow fly, we headed back to the kayaks to paddle towards the island with the trail.

Nervously, we paddled our kayaks through the interior coves.  We weren't sure if it was low or high tide but the oyster beds were jutting up out of the water in low spots and their razor like scrapes on the bottom of my kayak a couple times made me cringe.  I made it through without too much damage.  We made it through to the beach side of the trail part of the island.  The beach had wildlife boundary signs on it.  On the journey across I had a small shark following me a few times.  My husband said it was scared of me, not following me, but I was scared of it!  I also saw a fight between a Magnificent Frigatebird and a seagull over a fish, they swooped so close to my kayak, they almost touched it.

View right before you enter the woods for the Atsena Otie trail.  We entered the woods next to the beach and walked a few steps down the trail to a kiosk.  As we were reading the sign, I could hear a faint buzzing getting louder and louder.  Looking down at my legs, they were covered in about a hundred mosquitoes!  I took off running down the trail with my gps in hand..I needed to get to the end of the trail to take elevation reading to get credit for the earthcache.  Passed a huge, dead hawk on the trail with feathers spread out all over the place.  Reached an old metal windmill, stopped to catch my breath and glanced backwards at my back, which was exposed due to my bathing suit..I gasped in horror at the massive black swarm of thousands of mosquitoes about to land on me.  I had 250 feet to go to reach the coords on the GPS but I turned around and ran as fast as I could down the trail all the way back to the beach, my husband right behind me.  I was bit many times and we renamed it Blood Donor Island.  Maybe one day I will go back, but only armed with a huge can of DEET.

On Sunday before we left we checked out a couple more trails.  The Cedar Key Railroad Trail, Cemetery Point Park and the Cedar Key Museum State Park.  Armed with bug repellent, each of these trails was a nice diversion.  The Railroad trail is a short walk on a strip of land into the water..you can read about the history on the kiosk at the beginning of the trail.  A geocache is hidden along the trail.  I spotted a Great Southern White and other butterflies while walking.  Cemetery Point Park is a boardwalk in swamp/waterway that borders a cemetery.  There is a geocache located there as well.  Past Cemetery Point Park is the state park.  Trail..filled with mosquitoes..my repellent had worn off in a morning shower.  There is a historical home with a few rooms to view and a small museum are also on the property. 

Eglin AFB Boiling Creek and Blackwater River State Park

I was thinking last night about the whole gardening and kayaking blog and realized I do so much of both I need to separate them.  So going forward, I am just putting my kayaking adventures here.  Today, I wanted to start with my most recent mini vacation to the Panhandle area in Florida.  This past week, we made a long twelve hour journey from Central Florida to North Florida.  Now, the drive can be done in about 7.5-8 hours, but we were pulling a pop-up camper, loaded down with two kayaks, and I wanted to go the scenic route.  We drove up 98, forgot to make a turn near Perry and ended up heading towards Tallahassee.  On the outskirts of Tally, we took 27 to 319 and headed south again through Woodville, stopping for lunch in St. Marks.  The drive through Panama City Beach has really changed, Apalachicola, not too much.  I remembered Seaside, but not Watercolor, which we also drove through.

Arriving at Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park, we set up camp in site 24, adjacent to the ranger's private residence road.  The sites were not extremely private, but not too bad.  Checking in, I asked the ranger about kayaking in Puddin' Head Lake.  He laughed and told me it was drained two years ago and was in a restoration process back to its natural state which was just a trickling stream at this point.  I had written a detailed itinerary for our trip with the following day's activities exploring the park's waterways - this hiccup was not a big deal as I figured it would give us more time to explore Blackwater River State Park.  I initially wanted to stay at Blackwater River but their campsites were full when I had made our reservations earlier in the month. The forecast was not favorable for us.  The picture above shows our campsite after one of the many storms we endured.

Eglin Air Force Base  Boiling Creek  

We had to stop at Jackson Guard station to obtain a special pass to be on the base and use it for recreational purposes.  You need your driver's license or ID and you have to watch a safety video.  I learned about UXO - or unexploded ordnances.  So, if you are walking in the woods on a military mission/bombing range and you see bullet casings, bullets, anything that looks like an explosive device - do not pick it up and proceed to smash it with something or throw it in a fire - really??  The nice ladies at the station issued our passes and gave us a huge map of the base.  We had to drive about 40 minutes because of active missions and DO NOT ENTER areas on the map to get to our destination.  They asked us why did we come out this week as it has been raining constantly..  While the storms rolled in, we got in the truck and headed out..passing our turn off road once, the gigantic map was a little bit bulky trying to hold in the cab of the truck.  You would think with a giant map, a car GPS and a handheld GPS we wouldn't get lost.  At last we arrived to our remote spot..which, actually turned out not to be so remote since several people came and went while we were there..they looked like military families enjoying the creek.

We pulled right up to the water

The paddle was enjoyable.  The creek had white, sandy bottoms and mostly clear water - the levels and clarity were altered due to the large amounts of rain but we could still get the idea that it was a clear creek.  It twisted and turned through the land.  We heard bombs going off in the distance for quite some time, as long as it wasn't storming.  Towards the end of the trip, jets were circling above over and over, doing some sort of exercise I imagine.  We paddled for several miles to the confluence of the Yellow River which was wide and moving very quickly.  We went out a little bit onto the river but the current was so fast for me, I turned back to the creek right away while John paddled a little ways up the River to see what was at the next bend.

Waiting out the storm in the truck

We had to paddle under this bridge.  I was worried about the water getting too high and not making it, we had to duck, but we made it.

Alien looking pitcher plants lined the banks

Beautiful Palamedes Swallowtails were flitting along the banks, finally was able to capture one when it landed

Twists and turns, overcast sky

Lily on the bank

Ebony Jewelwing

Blackwater River State Park

On day two, we drove out to Holt, Florida to Blackwater River State Park.  I happened to notice the logs for two of the geocaches I was seeking had not been found in the past year, so I cancelled the quest assuming they were not going to be there.  Went after another one, we did not find near the entrance to the park.  The park was desolate, the ranger was not at the station and not five minutes after arriving at the parking lot to the beach area, an intense storm rolled in.  We waited it out under then pavilions connected by boardwalks near the restrooms.  We checked out the beach and noticed the current of the river was swift like the Yellow River, presumably from all the rain.  I had an outline of about ten geocaches along the river that I wanted to go after but they were located near an upstream bridge.  Since we didn't have a shuttle, we did not want to paddle downstream with such a fast current, then have to paddle back upstream to the truck.  We decided to put in downstream so we could paddle up to the caches, then back down with the current when it was time to turn around.  Using my GPS as a guide, I tried to direct us through the woods to get as close of a put in as I could to the end of the cache trail I had marked.  A primitive campsite led to a 'cliff' that would not do as a put-in.  Eventually, we did find and settle on a put-in that was as close as we could get, about .75 miles from the first cache.  We made it to about .48 miles but John had an emergency at work which he needed cell phone coverage for, so we had to head back to the put-in early.  We enjoyed lunch on the white, sandy bank of one of the beaches.  

Waiting for rain to stop..again

Searching for a good put-in...

Found one!

Nice spot for lunch

The beginning of the gardening and butterfly obsession

I recently got married in May at Bok Tower Gardens and had it in my head that I wanted to release live butterflies, specifically, Florida native ones.  After finding on the web that most of the butterflies available are monarchs, I stumbled upon a butterfly farm in Archer that seemed to know a lot about them and have many kind available.  They also sold caterpillar eggs so that you could raise them on your own.  I thought that sounded like such a great idea so I ordered my eggs, some host plants and zippered habitats.

I have spent the last few months buying butterfly and gardening books and learning as much as I can about it.    To date, I have raised Black Swallowtails, Gulf Fritillaries, Polydamas Swallowtails, Sleepy Orange, Monarchs and one Giant Swallowtail.  I soon found out the caterpillars are so tiny and cute when they emerge from their eggs, but a few weeks later they are devouring every last leaf on their host plants.  I bought a nursery discount card and have spent lots of money and sweaty labor in the backyard, trying to perfect my garden.

The picture above is the very first start of the butterfly garden.  I planted this in June approximately after we bought our new house.  Every butterfly I have raised I have released right here in my backyard.  I joined BAMONA to help  me identify new species coming to the yard and found out on Facebook that my family up North is interested in other insects, so I started photographing spiders and insects along with my butterflies.  The initial garden was planted with lantana, pentas, coneflower, dahlia, false nettle - this came with my caterpillar eggs, dwarf ruellia, plantain grass, passionflower vine, asclepias, dutchman's pipe vine and three roses.

Butterfly garden today.  The three roses I bought from Jackson and Perkins and two of them died.  One is still surviving.  I am still working on the back wall, what I want to do with it that is, and I think I have settled on planting passionflower vines on trellises.  There is one back there now, but it has been eaten by all the Gulf Fritillary caterpillars.  It will grow back.  We put in an adonidia palm.  It said maximum height of 8 feet and this spot is so sunny, even the full sun flowers did not seem happy.  I put in a dwarf cassia which has brought the Sleepy Orange butterflies and Sulphurs.  I also added buddleia, cosmos, zinnias grown from seed which are the tallest flower in the garden now, coral honeysuckle, which I haven't planted in the ground yet and some blue salvia.  I don't remember what the purple flowers in the pot are, I got them at Lowe's on clearance with hardly any blooms, some pruning and care and they are a profusion of purple.  The butterflies don't care for them a whole lot but they are pretty for me to look at.  Still a work in progress..but it makes me happy to look out my back window and see all the color..the butterflies flitting about is a bonus.  Taking care of the caterpillars is tough work..they are eaten by wasps, stinkbugs and I think the ants eat their eggs.

I planted what I call my Summer garden adjacent to the butterfly garden.  It is still growing but has vinca, canna, asian lily, melampodium, muhly grass, hibiscus, black eyed susan, coreopsis, dwarf ixora, and my favorite, gaillardia.  I use the Better Homes and Gardens website for garden plans but I have to substitute Florida flowers quite often.  The butterflies actually like this garden also, especially all the yellow ones.  I have found as I plant, that I sometimes change my mind and dig up a plant to move it.  I know they don't like this..so I don't do it too often..but I am not afraid I am going to mess up the landscape when I realize I can move something if I want to.  I bought a lot of these flowers from Lowe's clearance, which is becoming my favorite place to get the flowers cheap, if I can find ones I want to buy.  I have saved over half off on some flowers before.  I also recently sprinkled a yellow gaillardia/daisy flower mix in the soil surrounding this garden..not sure how that will work out but I will find out in a month or so I suppose.


I will finish this post with some of my favorite pictures from my backyard.  I have so many at this point, so it will be hard to pick out just a few.

                                           Dorantes Long Tailed Skippers

                                          Giant Swallowtail

                                          Gulf Fritillaries laying eggs

                                          Dorantes Long Tailed Skipper

                                           Monarch laying eggs

                                          Polydamas laying eggs

                                           Cassius Blue

                                         Sleepy Orange

                                             spragueia

                                            Fiery Skipper

Hello World

This is my inaugural blog post, so I thought I would start with an introduction.  My husband and I just got back from vacation in Northwest Florida and while I was posting dozens of pictures to Facebook, I realized it might be time to start a blog for our adventures.

Our family loves to kayak and I am the trip planner, scouring Florida for waterways to explore.  I have a yellow Eddyline Nighthawk, my husband, John, paddles with a blue Legend, and the boys when they join us, go in an RTM Ocean Duo tandem.  We have paddled in several places in Florida and the biodiversity and scenery differences are amazing to me.  I have seen some of the most beautiful settings and wildlife and often feel like I am paddling into a Nature documentary special.  

My goal will be to post as many of our past adventures as I can and to stay current with all of our recent outings as well.  Part of my trip planning includes surfing the Internet for other people's blogs and trip reports so I hope my reports may help others to plan their own trips one day.

My other current hobbies which I hope to post on here include gardening, specifically for butterflies, raising caterpillars, photographing strange and wonderful insects, bird watching and camping.