Florida Day 10 - Paddling Chokoloskee Bay

We headed across the bay from the visitors center in fairly high winds.  There seemed to be a cormorant on every post.

We paddled around Sandfly Island and explored among many of the small mangrove islands and oyster beds.






We only paddled about 6.5 miles, but the tough paddling against the wind on the return trip across the bay gave us plenty of exercise.

This is probably our last trip to Everglades City.  The paddling isn't nearly as interesting as other places we have been and there isn't much else to do here.

Florida Day 9

Today was a driving day, from New Smyrna Beach to Everglades City, a total of about five hours.  But we had a wonderful break along the way, stopping for lunch and a nice visit with our friends J and C from the Adirondacks.  They are renting a place in Lake Placid, FL for a couple of weeks.  We are staying at Ivey House as usual in Everglades City.

Florida Day 8

Today did not go as planned.  The weather has greatly improved and we had hoped to drive to Deland and paddle around Hontoon Island on the St John River and associated creeks.  But W ended up with what we call "photographer's elbow."  He has been spending a lot of time taking photos with his new camera and apparently keeping his elbow bent tightly for an extended period of time has caused irritation of the ulnar nerve.  It is quite painful and it seemed like a bad idea to irritate it further by paddling, so yet another relaxing day indoors.  He had a nice walk on the beach.  My bum knee still hurt from too much walking yesterday, so I took it easy.  We did have a nice lunch at Norwood's Restaurant.

Florida Day 7

We are still in New Smyrna Beach.  The winds are still very high but the rain has stopped and there is even some sun.  We went to Smyrna Dunes Park at the end of the peninsula to walk on the boardwalk and the beach.  Then we went to Flagler Tavern for a yummy lunch.  The final stop was at the house that used to belong to W's grandparents.  It is now a realtor's office so we were able to go inside and look around a bit.  It is great that the house, dating from the beginning of the 1900's, is still in use.

Florida Day 6

Today's weather is really bad - 30 mile an hour winds and driving rain.  We went to brunch at a neat restaurant on Flagler called the Third Wave Cafe, then drove around a bit.  Then back to the room for the rest of the day.

Florida Day 5

Sunrise this morning.  The view from our balcony.


A very cool and extremely windy day today.  Other than lunch, more grocery shopping, and a short walk on the beach, we are staying in today.

Florida Day 4 - continued

On our way to the Silver River we saw this funky shop that we just had to stop at on the way back to the hotel.


It was full of all manner of "yard art."


Very full.


There were LOTS of pottery figures and we bought a frog, smaller than this one.


We thought this bench was a bit weird.

Silver River continued

Anhinga

Bald Eagle


Great Blue Heron - and turtles


Great Egret


Green Heron


Ibis


Yellow-crowned Night Heron


Alligators

Florida Day 4 - Silver River

We did one of our all-time favorite paddles today.  We put in at the Ray Wayside on Route 40, and paddled onto the Silver River.


At the head of the river is the springs that puts out millions of gallons a day, making paddling upstream a challenge.  But the scenery and wildlife make it very worthwhile.  It is five miles one way but at least the ride back downstream is fast.






Here is the probably incomplete list of all the birds and animals we saw.  Some photos follow in the next post.

• Manatee
• Alligator
• Turtle
• Rhesus Monkey - yes, we saw several even though we had heard they were being rounded up and taken out of the park.
• Anhinga
• Double-crested cormorant
• Ibis
• Great white egret
• Great blue heron
• Green heron
• Tri-colored heron
• Little blue heron
• Yellow-crowned night heron
• Black-crowned night heron
• Kingfisher
• Limpet
• Bald eagle
• Pied-billed grebe
• Pileated woodpecker
• Black vulture
• Common gallinule

Florida Day 3

We started our drive to Florida two days ago on January 22nd.  We put the boats on the car and headed for the DelMarVa peninsula and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  We then made our way to Route 95 at Emporia, VA.  We drove into North Carolina and spent the night in Wilson.  The only traffic we encountered was in downtown Norfolk.  Yesterday we continued the drive down 95 to New Smyrna Beach, FL.  The traffic was light but there were lots of trucks which we tried to avoid since driving behind a truck really causes the boats to bounce around.  We arrived at Ocean Trillium Suites in New Smyrna Beach last evening where we will spend a week.  We woke to thunder storms which dissipated mid-morning.  We had lunch at Boston Fish House then went grocery shopping.  The sun came out and we had a nice walk on the beach this afternoon.  We photographed several birds, including these royal terns.

There were lots of these jellyfish on the beach.  We looked them up when we got back to the room and found they are called cannonball jellyfish.

Quilts 56, 57, 58, 59

I have been remiss in posting quilt photos.  Here are the latest four.
This is a shimmering triangles that I did last summer.


Another one I did over the summer to use up some fabric from my stash.


This one is called "Ring Around the Four Patch" and is from a class at quilt camp last summer.


And I just finished this one in flannel for my daughter.