Gator Wet Meet

With this title you wouldn't think that gators and a wet meet would be a good thing, but this time it was. That's because the 'Gators' pertain to the South Florida Chapter of the Antique Outboard Motor Club. 

The wet meet and displays were held at a park and boat launch ramp on Lake June in the the town of Lake Placid (obviously FL not NY 😉). It was a perfect day, and we met lots of the chapter members who were very welcoming to us members of the Mohawk Hudson Chapter of the AMOCI. The venue was similar to the meets we go to up north, but there were also awards given, along with a 50/50 raffle and consolation prizes given at the picnic lunch we were invited to attend. It is too bad that we don't have room down here for some of our outboard and boat collection, because they would be a big hit at these shows. Below are some photos of the boats and motors we saw on display at Lake June. 

Coincidentally, it took us about the same amount of time to get to this Lake Placid from Jensen Beach as it does for us to get to the northern Lake Placid from Ticonderoga...about an hour and 45 minutes. The rides to both lakes are scenic, but couldn't be more different. Up north we go through the mountains, and down here it is flat fields of sod, citrus, and cattle farms. 

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Birding Extravaganza

I am a casual birder both here and up north. I don't usually go out looking for birds, but I keep an eye out for them. This summer I started using two different apps, eBird and Merlin to keep track of sightings. Merlin is great because it identifies birds by their sounds and songs. If you see and hear the bird you can click on "that's my bird" and it takes you to eBird to add it to your list. I am not really working on a monthly or yearly list, but am striving to reach 100 birds for my life list. I am at 88 different birds as of today. There are so many that I have seen over the years, but now I have to see them again to add them. We struck gold yesterday when we visited the state parks at Sebastian Inlet. There is a park on each side of the bridge going over the inlet.

We were amazed at the number of fishermen lining the jetties and on the beach. They must have been soaked with sea water because the waves were breaking on the rocks and going over the walkway, so we opted not to go out to where they were fishing at the end (zoom in on the photo).

The fish didn't stand a chance because waterbirds were also hunting everywhere (so were dolphins). This Woodstork didn't care that I was right next to it. It is such a strange but beautifully ugly bird. 😉

Skimmers are a favorite of mine and are real groupies. I counted over 80 of them together, along with common terns, laughing gulls, and a big herring gull.

Royal Tern and Willets:

We also saw other herons, sandpipers, brown pelicans, and white pelicans, but they had previously been added to my list. What an outstanding place to watch nature!

Trail Hopping

With cooler weather comes hiking explorations. Our hiking down here is much different than up north in the mountains and more like a walk in the park...which is what we did a couple of days ago. Last season we hiked the south side of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Nature Trail. At the time, we didn't know there was a north side until we were headed back to Jensen Beach. On Sunday, we braved the possibility of Thanksgiving weekend crowds and took the north trail, only to discover we were the only people in the park! There is one paved handicap accessible path that leads to a boardwalk and viewing pavilion.

Then there is a sandy loop trail through the scrub brush with several tortoise dens.

It didn't take us long to complete the entire trail, so we crossed the street to do the south trail too. It is a bit hillier with different kinds of trees and plants.

This nasty sharp tree is called a prickly ash tree or toothache tree. From what I have read, the bark can numb your mouth, but beware there are some trees that look like this that are poisonous.

When the Jupiter Lighthouse started peaking through the bushes, we knew we were about to round the corner towards the Intracoastal Waterway.

As we walked along the ridge above the shoreline, Dave heard someone call out to him from the water. It ended up being the captain of a charter pontoon boat looking for the people who hired him to pick them up somewhere on the park's beach for a surprise wedding! We hadn't seen anyone but the captain said that if we do, tell them where he is, but don't wreck the surprise, because the guests don't know about the wedding. We never ran into any lost people so we don't know how it all turned out. We did find this Hammock Hangout oasis though, complete with posts for your hammock. I wonder how many people actually use it.

We still have a few more weeks before the winter season starts and more people arrive to take advantage of our weather. We are going to try and do as much as possible before then, but we still have our motto of "when they zig, we zag," down to a science. 

Another Day...

...Another gator...

...and he brought a turtle friend.

This time we saw them at Hillmoor Lake Park. The Woodstork trail is a great 1.8 mile walk with lots of water wildlife.

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Catch Of The Day

Since we didn't quite make it to the south fork of the St. Lucie River a few days ago, we decided to launch the kayaks at our usual spot in Hosford Park this morning. What a surprise to arrive and see a kayak floating upside down just off the ramp. We immediately put our yaks in the water and tried to retrieve it. It was so filled with water that it was barely afloat. We managed to push it to shore with our yaks and paddles, but when Dave tried to flip it over and haul it out of the way so no boats would hit it, he could barely move it, with its added water weight. He got it to drain a bit and pulled it up as far as possible, but we had to get out of the way because someone with an empty boat trailer was waiting to haul their power boat out. After our outing, we noticed that another good Samaritan must have pulled it up higher and flipped it over when it had drained. With the super high tide today, we presume it had floated from a dock (several docks were underwater along the way), and hopefully the owner will come looking downstream for it.

Once we were paddling we got to see more nature than we did at Halpatiokee. This turtle was high and dry, with its legs fully extended to keep it out out of any predators' mouths.

The turtle was smart, because not too far away from it we saw this alligator! At least it was only about a 4 or 5 footer, so we weren't too concerned with it (I also had a tarpon come to the surface and roll right next to me, which startled me more than the gator).

We also saw lots of boats from gorgeous 50+foot Grand Banks and Palm Beach yachts, to the complete opposite of them, boats that were salvaged by Sea Tow. The Sportfishermen was being kept afloat by the heavy ropes held up by the crane. The huge tour catamaran next to it was covered with barnacles, so it must have been underwater for quite awhile.

With all the things we experienced today, I would say that we had more than one catch of the day...or at least I caught them with my camera. 😉

The Park I Can't Pronounce

Our friend Lorraine told us about a park in Stuart where we could launch our kayaks. It sounded interesting and a couple of days ago we headed to Halpatiokee Park off Kanner Rd., just east of I 95. This is a huge sports complex with all sorts of baseball and soccer fields, but we managed to find a dirt road to a small, out of the way kayak launch. 

Since we weren't quite sure where we were, we asked a really nice kayak fisherman if this led to the south fork of the St. Lucie River. No he said, this is a separate canal that leads to two fresh water lakes (you have to portage to the second one, which we opted not to do). He said that he has seen owls, cougars, alligators, and deer along the shore, so we were excited to explore a new place. It was similar to paddling the backwaters of Lake Okeechobee, but unfortunately there wasn't much nature out that morning (that could have been because it was late morning and I 95 and Florida's Turnpike, which run near by, was quite noisy with traffic).

It was very pretty, and especially nice to be in some fresh water, complete with flowers, some of which, like lily pads, we see in the northeast.

Afterwards, we drove further down the dirt road to another kayak launch area and a hiking and bicycle trail that goes around the lake. 

It looked like a picnic table was placed there just for us and our lunch. 

I still have a problem pronouncing the park's name, but I think it is Hal-patio-key. Call it what you want, it was a fun first discovery...with barely a soul anywhere.

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