Weeki Wachee River

A Trio of manatees on the Weeki Wachee River

Today I learned a valuable lesson: You do not have to take a gazillion wildlife pics to enjoy a paddle. This paddle was one I had on schedule for many weeks. Last year I took my sister and her husband to the Weeki Wachee along my whole family. While we enjoyed the scenery was not the best paddle and my wife says that she is not going back unless we put in at the Weeki Wachee Springs State Park. Since this was a solo paddle  I did not go to the State Park, at least by using the roads.

Weeki Wachee River

Put In / Take Out: I only know two options as Put Ins in the Weeki Wachee. You put in at the State Park and come all the way down the river to Rogers Park. The people renting canoes and kayaks at the State Park will arrange to pick you up there. It is my understanding that if you use your own vessel they will also take you back to the park for a fee. The second option is harder  but you will have double the fun. You put in at Rogers Park and go all the way to the State Park, against the current of a first magnitude spring and its 6.5 miles, but then you come back just floating. Today option 2 was my choice. The fee at Rogers Park is a $5. There is a pay station and takes cash or credit cards, which I think is convenient. Also, there are places nearby Roger Park where you can rent a kayak.

A view of Rogers Park from the Weeki Wachee

The Weeki Wachee is a first magnitude spring. Meaning that more than 64.6 millions of gallons per day flow out of the spring. As a matter of fact the Weeki Wachee averages 170 millions of gallons per day. That makes paddling upstream fun and challenging. A mile away from the park a lady asked me where I did put in. When I told her Rogers Park she replied..."Crazy Man". Well, I learned from the best so...What can I say?

Weeki Wachee River

Manatee eating on the Weeki Wachee

I started my paddle at 9:20 and was hoping to see manatees at the Hospital Hole. There were none but a few meters ahead, where a residential canal starts, three of them were coming down river. It is my policy not to harass these big mammals so did paddle down river and waited for them to come near my yak. Once they reached where I was did let the yak go and took a couple of pics while the manatees were swimming beside me. Seeing a manatee in such beautiful waters is an unique experience. I was lucky enough to live that experience three times today. This one just mentioned was the first, about 45 minutes later there were three more near a residential area. On that one too many people were around so just paddled away. The third time was on my way down and on that chance did get on the water with the manatee. I will add to it ahead.

Weeki Wachee River manatee

Scene on the Weeki Wachee River

When I said in the opening that I learned a lesson today did mean it. So far my method of evaluating our paddles was the amount of wildlife pics taken. Today did not take too many. The fact that wifey was not with me and the nature of this paddle had something to do. But it was an enjoyable paddle, for most of the time. It is hard to kayak this river and not to enjoy its beauty. The only thing I did not like was the dozens of boats on the river. It was like a parade. There were also many kayakers, it was expected, but the boats was an extreme. It took me almost three hours to reach the State Park mostly because had to stop several  times to let boats go ahead of me and also to let downstream kayakers to paddle by. That did not stop a canoe from slamming into my kayak but I was able to stay out of the water, not dry, but out of the river.

Kayakers enjoying a break at the State Park area

Weeki Wachee River manatee

I made it to the State Park around 12:05. A group of kayakers were already there, they passed me twice on the river, and a couple also arrived while I was there. I waited for all of them to leave before starting my paddle down river. In the mean time had a sandwich and two bottles of water. I was thankful that this time had the current in my favor. Had the river to myself except a couple of occasions where found kayakers beached on the side of the river. There is an area that used to be for public use but it was closed by the Hernando County due to the abuse and undesirable behavior of the public. It was on in that area where I had the chance to get into the water with a manatee. I saw it coming up river, paddled by it but realized that it did not keep going up. Found a place to beach the yak, grabbed my snorkeling gear and jumped into the water. It was eating and did not mind my presence at all. Did shoot a couple of pics and a video. After that saw a manatee with its calf being bothered by a Dad and his son. The kid was holding the baby in the water and the Dad was trying to ride the mom. Mom and calf were separated and the little one was trying to reach its mother. As much as I wanted to get into the water and take more pics was disgusted by the actions of the "humans" so put my yak between the baby and the kid until it rejoined its mother. They found a small cove and stayed there and I decided that they had enough of stupidity and left.

Weeki Wachee Springs State Park Tour Boat

Did You Know That?...
The river that surfaces at Weeki Wachee Springs is the deepest naturally occurring spring in the USA. It measures 150ft wide and 250ft long. In 2007 a team of divers were able to explore the caverns under the spring and found multiple passages ranging from 265 to 407 Feet Fresh Water. That makes it the deepest cavern system in the USA.

Weeki Wachee River

Do not have many pics of wildlife, other than the manatees. There were not too many wading birds around but this is what I saw in the Weeki Wachee...

Turtle

Little Blue Heron

Little Blue Heron

Ibis

Great Egret

Things people do in the Weeki Wachee...

Swing Rope jumping

Swing Rope Jumping( I would do the same...if I was 17 years old)

Diving from trees

Here is a short raw video of a manatee on the Weeki Wachee River...

That is all. Thanks for reading and hopefully will see you next week on another Views From Our Kayak.

Weeki Wachee River

Pellicer Creek (Faver-Dykes State Park)

Swallow-Tailed Kite

When you have a good paddle, as the one we had this past weekend at Blue Spring, it is hard to go for the next one and not being excited. Your expectations are high and you just wish for it to be as good or maybe better than your previous. That was the mood today when we left home towards Faver-Dykes State Park to kayak on Pellicer Creek. This was a place I spotted  not too long ago while driving to St. Augustine. Saw the sign on I-95, Pellicier Creek, and did a research. My two sources of information, Green Wave Forum and Dave's Yak Tales, did not have too many posts about so I was reluctant. Wanted to go alone first since it looked like the kind of place my wife would not enjoy too much. But she wanted to come and there we went.

Immature Little Blue Heron

Put In / Take Out: The put in for this trip was the Boat Ramp at Faver-Dykes State Park in St. Augustine. The entrance fee at the park is $5.00 but, watch out, they do not have to Park Ranger at gate. It is an honor system, like at Katie's Landing(See Lower Wekiva River post).You put your five in the envelope they provide and hang the receipt in your rear view mirror. It is that easy.  A dirt road will take you to the boat ramp. Just have to follow the signs. On the other hand, the ramp it is not designed for kayaks but for boats. Have to use your imagination to put in and not to scratch your yak in the concrete. It has a dock on the side which we used as the take out. The parking spots are not well defined so use common sense and try not to block the dirt road. It also has water and rest rooms, in case you need them.

Pellicer Creek

Great Egret

We were in the water by 9:20AM. Pellicer Creek is influenced by the tides and it was going out when we started our paddle. The plan was to go up the creek to the US Hwy 1 bridge and turn around. As you can see from the previous pic it is a marshy environment and the water is brackish. There are a few areas with residences and trees but it stay with that look almost all the time. After the I-95 bridge it is more a typical Florida forest. It does not have too many places where you can take cover from the Sun so be aware. Not too many places where you can take a break and stretch your legs. There was one in an area where FPL power transmission lines cross the creek but we did not use it.

Swallow-Tailed Kite

Adult Swallow-Tailed Kite

This paddle was not as good as our most recent paddle. As a matter of fact was not as good as many of our paddles but it had its moments. The best moment of this paddle was when three Swallow-Tailed Kites flew around us and preformed some acrobatics. Two of them flew between the trees with such elegance and incredible agility. It was cool to see that and to hear them. That is something you do not see too often. Unfortunately when the birds were near us they did fly into the Sun and wifey was not able to shoot the pics she wanted. But she was able to shoot some pics while they flew into the trees and also of one of them perched. Also we noticed that one of them had a shorter tail. We asked ourselves; Male and Female or Adult and Juvenile, so as soon as we arrived at home did a quick research and found that juveniles have a shorter tail. I know that the pics are not too clear but just want to show you the size of the tail on each bird.

Juvenile Swallow-Tailed Kite. See the shorter tail

Did You Know That?

Swallow-Tailed Kites are fiercely protective of their nest and will threat and attack any and all intruders. The pair only produce one brood per breeding season. If two eggs are laid the first chick to hatch will kill the younger chick(talk about bad timing). Florida harbors two of the North American greatest nesting population densities in the South West; Bug Cypress and Corkscrew Swamp.

I-95 Bridge over Pellicer Creek

We reached the US Hwy 1 bridge as planned. Did paddle a little more to the west after that and turned around. The heat was putting a number on us so we took advantage of the shade the two bridges provided on our way back to the State Park. Of course, on our trip back the tide was coming in and the wind too. We arrived at the take out around 1:00PM. That gave us about 3 hours and forty minutes in the water. Saw only a canoe and two small motor boats during that time. A father and a son were fishing at the dock. The kid was having a heck of  a fun. While I packed our stuff and put the yak in the van he caught no less than five fishes, some bigger than the others but small of all them. He put them back on the water. His Dad told me that they canoed all the way down to Princess Place, another option as Put In in this area, and that he was so tired. I believed him. We were as tired as he was.

US Hwy 1 Bridge over Pellicer Creek

Well, here are more pics of what we saw today...

Osprey flying over Pellicer Creek

Little Blue Heron

Little Blue Heron

Song Bird

Juvenile Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Juvenile Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Green Heron

Green Heron

Green Heron

Spotted Sandpiper (non breeding plumage)

Spotted Sandpiper (non breeding plumage)

Great Egret

Great Egret Flying at Pellicer Creek

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

That is all for this one. For more pics from this trip check our Photobucket slideshow Pellicer Creek. Still have to add more pics so give me a day or two if you want to see all of them.

Thanks for reading and see you soon for another Views From Our Kayak

Fiddler Crabs on the banks of Pellicer Creek

Blue Springs

Manatee

As I posted yesterday, had a spectacular, perfect...well...almost perfect paddle at Blue Springs this past Saturday July 16th. It was not the location I had in mind when decided where to go but time constrains made us go there. Wifey had more than 300 pics to review. After she deleted the bad ones and the ones she did not like the number did not come down of 320 pics. Then it was up to me to decide what to post. Was not easy to decide but had to do it. No way I can post 320 pics here. It will be safe to assume we were very pleased and happy we went to Blue Springs. Stay with us and you will see why.

Thursby House

Put In / Take Out: We use the facilities of Blue Spring State Park in Orange City. The entrance fee per vehicle is $6.00 up to 8 occupants. It is not too bad, if you arrive early. The put in it is not too far from the parking spots but it involves some kayak dragging/carting/carrying. I did park for a few minutes in the Service Vehicle area, dropped the kayak, and then drove our minivan to one of the parking spots. The put in area is a small beach, if you can call it like that, near the canoe/kayak rental concessionary. There you will start paddling in the waters of the St. Johns River, where the Blue Spring Run empties a few meters to the North.

Blue Spring Run

Manatees in the Blue Spring Run

The Blue Spring Run is short. No motor boats are allowed to pass a designated area after the St. Johns but canoes and kayaks can. Even better than that; kayaks and canoes can paddle all the way to the Blue Spring but it has to be before 11AM or after 5PM. The run it is an extremely popular swimming and tubing area and it also is a Manatee Sanctuary. From November 15th to March 15th no one is allowed to swim, tube, or paddle in the waters of the run since it becomes the winter residence to hundreds of manatees. I saw it last winter and it is impressing. Today , against my best wishes, we decided to kayak the run because my wife wanted to do it and we had some time before 11AM. I am really glad we did as she wanted, because what we saw in the run. As soon as we entered spotted a manatee on the North side of the run. It was very active and splashing a lot. It was then when we realized that it was not A manatee but manatee-S doing whatever manatees do to preserve the species. We gave them plenty of room and wifey did shoot pics from the distance until a couple in a canoe decided they wanted to be really close to the action. That seemed to spooked the big mammals, or maybe they just finished their business and left. We paddled up the run to the border of the swimming area and turned around since it was almost 11AM. On our way to the St. Johns stopped to take a pic of a little gator in a log and a tricolored heron.

Tri-Colored Heron

Manatee comes to say hello

As we were busy with the heron people on the boardwalk started yelling "Manatee...manatee". Effectively, a manatee was coming down the run following a couple of kayaks. We saw it and moved to the side of the run at the other side of the boardwalk where I grabbed a twig coming out of the water and waited for the manatee to come. We have learned that if you go after them, 8 out of 10 times the manatee will swim away. If you stay still or just float around, 8 out of 10 times it will come to you. It did not take too long before the manatee came to take a look, which made my wife very happy since she did shoot pics of the marine mammal at will. It was sad to see the ugly scars on the manatee's back though. But it was playful and even when I let the twig go stayed with us for several minutes. The manatee had a tracking device on the tail and also had L1 written. We thought it was a code to identify it but came home to find out that L1 means the manatee has a skin virus. There was no floating device attached to the tracking belt and we were not able to read what was written on it.

Blue Spring Run manatee

Osprey

Cannot remember how much time we spent in the run. After more people arrived to see the manatee we left and headed north on the St' Johns River. There is a small island west of another put in / take out area at the end of French Avenue. The waters around that island are usually rich in wildlife. We have seen manatees there on previous trips. We had our manatee dose and were looking for something different. Wifey was hoping for a red shouldered hawk or an eagle but she was more than happy of taking pics of an osprey, a Pileated Woodpecker, a Little Blue Heron, a Cardinal, an Anhinga, a Great Egret, and a Great Blue Heron that were in the area. One thing that was a concern to us was the heat. We made a stop and floated in the area while applying sun screen to ourselves, again, and grabbed more water bottles from the cooler.

Cardinal

Belted Kingfisher

After circling the island we headed South up river. The wind in our back made it felt like we were going down river and it was a welcome help. We were close to the west bank of the St' Johns when I saw something in the distance. It flew to a tree in the distance and did not, or maybe did not see it, come out. It was the elusive Belted Kingfisher. When I heard the distinctive sound the Kingfishers knew that what I saw was not my imagination. Did not see again and kept paddling to another area, South of the State Park put in, that also is a good place to see birds and gators. But close to the South entrance of that area we saw it again and, because it was in the East bank, we crossed the St. Johns looking for pic chance. The problem was that a couple in a canoe was in front of us and it was making the Kingfisher fly farther and farther from. At one point they stopped and that was our break. We tried not too approach it too fast but it kept flying away when we were close, as it usually does. Anyways we tried and wifey was able to shoot some pics of the Belted Kingfisher.

Limpkin

Gator on the St. Johns River

The plan was to take one of the canals that connect the St. John with a river named Dead River. Dead River is West of what is called Hontoon Island, which is a State Park too. Once we paddled from Blue Spring State Park around Hontoon Island and back to the St. John thru one of the canals but wifey did not like that trip too much. Saturday we just wanted to paddle the canal from the St. Johns and then come back. We found and explored the first canal, which is the more to the South, but it was blocked so we headed to the other body of water that connects the St. Johns with Dead River; Snake Creek.

Butterfly

Snake Creek...and a green mat

On my opening statement of this post said that this was an almost perfect paddling. Here is the explanation. I have been looking forward to paddle Snake Creek. The first time I missed the entrance from Dead River. The second time tried from the St. Johns but there was a downed tree so had to turn back. This time it looked promising until found a green mat of leafs covering the waters of Snake Creek. At the beginning it was a thin cover but after maybe twenty minutes it became thick. I did read somewhere that there is a rule of thumb for these kind of situations: If you cannot see the end of the blockage, turn around. Well, the end was not anywhere to be seen and we kept going until it became really thick and it was like trying to paddle on sand. It was at that point when told my wife we really had to turn around. Looking at the map we were maybe half way(best case scenario) but truth is, I did not know how was it the rest of the way. When we looked forward and only saw green several meters ahead thought it was better to return. At least we knew how far we were from entrance of the creek. But one good thing about this mini adventure in Snake Creek is that we saw several Black Crowned Night Herons. They were skittish but we were able to get some pics at the end.

Black Crowned Night Heron

Anhinga (female)

After the miss-adventure on Snake Creek we decided it was time go back. At that time we had been in the water for nearly 4 hours. Wifey still does not like to be paddling for so long but even when she was tough and did not say a word, I knew it was enough. She just asked me for another paddling into the run and then we could leave. Thought she deserved that, after we went thru at the creek she could have asked whatever she wanted to ask. Did not stay at the run for too long; we were tired and hungry. When we beached the yak at the State Park the tour boat was coming back to the dock. With the yak on the top on the mini van went to the boardwalk to take a stride to the spring. We stopped at one of the observing platforms to look for manatees on the run but there were none. As wifey moved to another spot to take pics of the many gars and mullets on the run someone besides me spotted a deer at the North bank of the run. I hoped that my wife saw it too and for her to be able to get some pics, which she did.

Deer on the Blue Spring Run bank

Wow...Sorry folks. This is taking too long and I realize not too many of you are visiting because my narrative skills. But before we finish this it is time for...

Did You Know That?

Tri-Colored Heron

Tri-Colored Heron was formerly known as the Louisiana Heron. It is one of the most abundant herons in the Deep South and is the only dark heron with a white belly. The Tri-Colored Heron's diet consist mostly of fish and the oldest one on record was 17 years and 8 months old. It ranges extends along the Atlantic coast from New Jersey southward Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America. It spends the winters over most of this range. When the Tri-Colored Heron senses danger nearby in the reeds or in high grasses, it may try to conceal itself by standing erect with its bill pointed toward the sky in order to blend in with its surroundings. When stalking small fished in shallows, it crouches with it's legs bent alsmot double or runs rapidly, wings partially raised, sometimes stretching one foot far forward and vibrating rapidly along bottom to flush prey.

Pileated Woodpecker

Here is what you probably came to see...the rest of the pics of what we saw today.

Let us start with herons...

Great Blue Heron

Green Heron

Green Heron

Black Crowned Night Herons

Tri-Colored Herons

Little Blue Herons

Egrets...

Snowy Egret

Great Egret

On the water...

Manatee

Gator

Gator

Gator

Turtle

Turtle

Gar

Mullets

Manatee

Turtle

In the air...

Osprey

Snowy Egret

Great Egret

Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

Immature Little Blue Heron

Black Crowned Night Heron

Swallow-Tailed Kite

Swallow-Tailed Kite

Great Blue Heron

Flora...

On the ground too...

Gator stalks a deer at Blue Spring Run

Blue Spring deer

Squirrel

Peek-a-boo!!!!!

And finally...grooming...

Osprey

Little Blue Heron

Great Egret

Green Heron

Sorry for such a long post folks. Think I over did it but..cannot promise it will not happen again though.

Here is the link for more pics of this and past trips to Blue Springs State Park

Thanks for reading and hope you come back to the next Views From Our Kayak

Blue Spring