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Friday, February 1, 2008

Kayaking the Intercoastal water

I'm an avid reader of many of the outdoors, canoe or kayaking magazines and I enjoy the many articles from all around the globe. The problem I encounter though it that most of these locations are limited to the few that are fortunate enough to live close by or those that have an endless supply of money and don't care how they spend it. I for one have a limited income, actually work for a living and will never have the opportunity to travel half way around the globe to paddle an exotic location. I do however, have the blessing of living on the Florida coast, near to the intercoastal waterway and would find it hard to trade this location for anything I've read about in the magazines.
The climate is temperate and the waterways are only minimally effected by tidal changes, which means I can paddle nearly any day of the year and at any time of the day. These are protected waters from the Atlantic ocean by the barrier islands which makes the water extremely friendly to all levels of paddle sports enthusiasts. The Indian River Lagoon, as the intercoastal is called in the mid-Florida coastline, doesn't appear that way to the viewers eye but the waters are very similar to that of a limited access and protected lagoon. There are many side creeks that flow into the lagoon, such as Turkey Creek in the Palm Bay, FL area. These creeks and marsh lands are home to a wide variety of wildlife and a stopping off point for many of the migratory bird species. The waters teem with many different species of fish, which makes it an ideal location for fishing and birding.
I'll take a minute and describe one of my recent outings on the Intercoastal. My son in law and I launched at the public marina at Vero Beach, FL around 3:00 PM. It was a balmy day with the temperature in the mid 70's and low humidity. A slight breeze was coming in from the East, not enough to create waves - just enough to make paddling in the late afternoon comfortable. We paddled North along the marina creek and marvelled at the many sailing yachts at anchor in the marina. These are mostly "snowbirds" from up North that sail South in the winter and live on their boats while enjoying the warmer climate for a few months. As we paddled further upstream along the banks of the many small islands, we noted there was still a lot of debris from the two hurricanes that hit the area in 2004. I saw part of a picket fence half submerged on the bank and of course there were a number of trees uprooted, showing their tangled root systems. The water was like glass and paddled easily, making very little noise and only leaving a line of wake in the water as we passed. Several pelicans were perched on old pilings as we passed and only gave us a casual glance, knowing we were no threat and probably more important to these birds - not a food source for them either. After an hour of pristine paddling we took a cut through between two islands and found a winding creek that let into one of them. Except for the sounds of the birds and the splash of fish, it was like moving into another world. No sounds of cars, other boats, radios or anything else associated with civilization. The creek narrowed as moved on through the island until we reached its end in a small bay. The only things we disturbed as we paddled were several large fish that splashed their escape from our gliding hulls. The creek had played out but pulling up on the sandy shore, we could see the Indian River (Intercoastal) barely 30 yards away. Instead of paddling back the way we came, we just pulled out the boats and portaged them through some light underbrush and were in a totally different environment again. This time we were on the main lagoon side of the islands and away from the protection and flat water we'd been enjoying. The waters were still calm but the openess of the large body of water did allow the breeze to create ripples on the surface. We paddled out of the small inlet we were in and into the main part of the river, still keeping close to the shoreline. There were more fish here than we'd seen previously and were actually expecting one of them to end up inside one of our boats, the way they were leaping from the water. As we pulled around a bend of the island, we noticed a deeper channel nearby and a lot of fish activity on the other side. We paddled our way across and found a huge sandbar, created by the channel and deeper, larger fish were having a hayday with the smaller fish that flittered around the edges of the sandbar. We anchored our boats and waded knee deep around the sandbar in the crystal clear water. As the sun was beginning to get low on the horizon, we sat on the edges of our boats with our feet in the water and toasted the occasion with a cold bottle of Shiner Bock beer that Matt had brought back from his trip to the Shiner brewery in Texas. The rest of the trip was equally as peaceful and pleasant but we were racing the dying sun and wanted to be back at the marina before dark since we had no lights on the kayaks.
Back to my original comments about the far away and exotic places the magazines seem to put all their efforts into - they might just take a look in their own backyards for places the majority of readers might actually be able to go to and find a piece of paradise like we have here at the Lagoon.
Paddle Dude

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