Views From Our Kayak: Canaveral Ntl. Seashore

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Canaveral Ntl. Seashore

Dolphin with a splitted dorsal fin

Our trip today took us to Canaveral National Seashore and the Mosquito Lagoon. For a description of this place click on this link: Canaveral National Seashore

Put in and take out: Located at the Parking Lot #7. That is past the boat ramp and turning right at the one way road. It is the second parking lot to the right. We put the yak in the water at 9:37 AM.

Dolphins in the Mosquito Lagooon

This is our second trip to Canaveral Seashore. The first time we headed North looking for Bethune Cove where manatees like to gather. Today that was the plan but I was not too confident of seeing manatees. During the winter they go to warmer waters and that means spring waters, which are 72F~74F year round. Anyways we started going north but my wife spotted a solo dolphin in the east side of the lagoon. That one kept going south and we lost it but when we were ready to continue our journey a pod of five dolphins kept us in the area for almost 45 minutes. One of the dolphins was one we saw on our previous trip. It is a dolphin with it's dorsal fin splitted. A small dolphin was always with it so we are assuming that it is Mom and baby. It was quite a show they put for us. Hitting the water with their tails and jumping all over the place. Sadly we were not able to catch any of the jumps at the right time. Ended with several pics of splashes.

We made it to Bethune Cove where the manatees were nowhere to be found. Wifey was very dissapointed. At 12:45 we started our paddle back with the wind against and choppy waters. On top of that the several motor boats in the lagoon rocked us real good everytime they went by us. It was no fun at all. Twice in our way back we saw dolphins, one of them just in front of Turtle Mound which is a high mound that rises a soaring 50ft(ok...I know...bad joke) over the sea level.

The low tide prevented us from exploring other areas. That and the wind, but the dolphins did worth the price of the ticket. It is the first time we see so many dolphins in the same trip. There were not too many wading birds to shoot pics at. Lots of gulls, pelicans and ospreys. Here are some pics of what we saw today.