Part 7b of Bill & Mary's Great Loop Trip

2007-05-24T18:49:00.000-07:00

The Last Hurrah Before Summer Starts

Our cruise north on the western Florida Intercoastal Waterway from Punta Gorda to Caladesi Island State Park was enjoyable. We saw lots of young osprey eating fish in their nests on top of day marks,

impressive waterfront homes,

gorgeous sunsets,

interesting scenery,

and many fast moving wake-producing boats as well as many slower moving ones like ours.

One of the fast moving boats could have been part of a James Bond movie where a helicopter swoops down from the sky and picks up the boat,

or where a helicopter flying over drops a missile on top of the boat. (This picture was actually taken in a military restricted zone near Panama City.)

We arrived back at Caladesi Island in time to enjoy Earth Day festivities at Honeymoon Island, a neighboring island state park. Tracy and Greg, two park rangers from Caladesi Island, created an impressive exhibit displaying some of the historical information and some of the natural features of the park.

This next picture shows Greg and Tracy on either side of Bill, the park manager of Caladesi, and Terry, the granddaughter of Myrtle the young girl whose father Henry Scharrer first homesteaded the island in the early 1890s.

In the spring many different species of birds pass through the park on their way north. Earlier we had seen a large flock of white pelicans, but on this visit we saw some scarlet tanagers and some indigo buntings. The blue of the male buntings is the most vivid blue I can imagine.

The females are more tan colored and don’t stand out nearly as much as the males do. The scarlet tanagers were also eye catching, but they were fewer in number and faster than our picture taking abilities.

On the first day that we hoped to leave, the weather was just perfect for a long 230-mile pass from Caladesi Island to Panama City. After a quick walk on the beach and many good-byes, we got underway about 9:30 am. The first morning ferry to the park passed us on our way out. Lots of waves, shouts and good wishes were offered to us by the crew and passengers.

Once we got in the Gulf, we saw only a few boats,two huge floating sea turtles, four dolphins riding our bow wake, and seven flying fish.

Flying fish? Click on the following link to see that there really is such a thing as a flying fish and then click on the BACK arrow to return to the blog.

http://oceanlink.island.net/oinfo/biodiversity/flyingfish/flyingfish.html

a magnificent sunset,

and wonderfully small waves. We were “buddy-boating” with a couple from Wisconsin who were on their boat, Act II. They travel slightly faster than us. When they couldn’t see us any more and they couldn’t raise us on their radio, they called the Coast Guard to check that we were still okay. It was quite a surprise to hear the Coast Guard radioing, “Harbour Reach, Harbour Reach, this is the Coast Guard.” We quickly radioed back and gave them our position and confirmed that all was well. It was comforting to know that “Someone out there cared” and that if there had been an emergency the Coast Guard would have been looking for us.

We pulled into the dock in Panama City about 3:30 pm the next day and took a short walk to the nearby park to take pictures of two trees we had forgotten to “shoot” in January. Before returning to the boat, we bought some “fresh shrimp right from the shrimp boat”, and continued walking to stretch our legs a little more. After an early supper we were in bed by 7:30 and didn’t wake up until morning. These all night cruises are somewhat tiring even though we take turns sleeping and driving the boat.

This is believed to be the only four headed pindo palm tree in the world.

Old Sentry is over 250 years old and is a heritage oak tree that has stood guard over St. Andrews Bay since before the War Between the States.

We took the Intercoastal waterway from Panama City to Mobile Bay. After leaving Panama City, our first overnight stay was at the Ft. Walton Beach City Dock.

It is well situated for boaters, close to grocery stores, laundromats, restaurants, post office, etc. We ended up staying two nights because thunderstorms and heavy winds were predicted. From there we went on to Pensacola where we visited the National Aviation Museum. Several people had told us to be sure to stop on our way back. It is located at the Naval Air Station and it has a mind-boggling collection of war planes dating all the way back to World War I. It is a plane enthusiast’s dream.!

Pretend you are comfortably seated on a boat, cruising north from Pensacola, FL and are enjoying some of the scenery along the Inter-Coastal Waterway on the panhandle of Florida and in Mobile Bay. Viewing the pictures is better than listening to our commentary for some of these sights.

Mary considered jumping ship and riding the following ferry out of the bay:

After leaving Mobile Bay, our friends on ACT II and we worked our way up the TomBigbee Waterway in Alabama, stopping at anchorages while enjoying air temperatures about 40 degrees warmer than we had when we came down in December.

The warmer weather, greener foliage, and sunnier days made us much happier with “life on the TomBigbee”. However we did learn to avoid swimming in some of the tempting waters when other swimming or floating creatures were evident like rattlesnakes

and alligators.

We also learned that we have to follow our judgment and not always pass green and/or red buoys in the direction they normally indicate. Amazingly one day we counted over fifteen buoys that were misplaced or completely damaged. There is never a dull moment when traveling on twisting rivers that handle large towboats with barges and which flood from heavy rains.

In 1979 a well trained towboat operator made an unbelievable journey under the Old Rooster Bridge during a time of flooding on the TomBigbee. At the time the water level was 59 feet higher then when we were there. The water level was only a few feet below the bridge deck which is in the middle of our picture. The bridge is no longer in operation, but part of it still stands and can be seen in the following picture.

Click the web address below to get a description of the "unforgetable journey", but don't forget to return BACK here for a few final pictures of our cruise.

http://www.dancetc.com/towboat.html

After leaving Demopolis, AL, ACT II continued north on the TomBigbee Waterway and we headed north on the Black Warrior River. We were a little nervous since there are no guidebooks for recreational boaters on this river and because it handles mainly commercial traffic. However, we spent three enjoyable days on our way up to Eagle Cove Marina in Tuscaloosa, AL where we are leaving the boat for the summer. The marina is about a mile north of Holt Dam and Lock and is in a very scenic section of the Black Warrior River. The next few pictures show Holt Dam and Lock and some scenes from the marina's docks and walkways.

Fishing is a favorite sport for many of the locals, even the young girls.

Spring flowers are quite colorful now.

We did a lot of cleaning and preparing Harbour Reach for its summer stay. We are looking forward to the fall when we move up river to see the more mountainous area and hopefully to enjoy the fall foliage colors.

Bill and I will spend three weeks of June in Indiana visiting relatives and part of one week in Colorado visiting friends. Then we’ll enjoy being home in Rhode Island until mid-October when we head back to the boat to do more exploring. We hope you have a wonderful summer!

2007-04-16T06:06:00.000-07:00

A Month in Caladesi Island State Park

It is amazing how fast time flies when you are thoroughly enjoying what you are doing! We sadly left Caladesi Island State Park last Friday. It is one of the few places that has completely “bewitched” us with its pure natural beauty and its abundance of many different varieties of colorful shore birds, many of which are on the “threatened list” of birds in America, and its variety of plants, both flowering and non-flowering.

A wooden boardwalk leads from the park’s marina, through a wide area of sand dunes with beach grasses and coastal plants, which form natural nesting areas for many varieties of water birds, gopher tortoise, and sea turtles. The boardwalk ends at the beautiful white sugar-fine sand beach that has made Caladesi Island famous.

The park’s beach has been rated as one of the best beaches in the nation for many years and it is known for outstanding shelling. Many mornings and evenings were spent walking the beach collecting shells, admiring shore birds, picking up trash, sharing conversation with other “beach combers”, and enjoying sunsets. The magnificent Gulf of Mexico helped to set the mood, peaceful and inviting at times and rough and threatening at other times. By mid-March the water was perfect for swimming as many northerners, such as us, enjoyed its warmth while many southerners watched on in horror. I overheard a conversation as a couple laughed at the “crazy tourists who were actually swimming”. Crazy we may be, but it certainly felt good!

The nature hiking trail and the mangrove-kayaking trail are also on our list of island favorites.

The hiking trail passed over a dune tidal pool, called a “cat’s eye” pond, which we quickly discovered is a perfect place to look for wading birds. For the first time we saw roseate spoonbills, tri-colored herons, and reddish egrets.

We learned that the reddish egret is the rarest heron in America and that there are only about 400 pairs in Florida. Like the Great Blue Heron, the Reddish Egret has two major varieties, the dark morph and the white morph, both outstandingly beautiful!

Reddish Egret, White Morph

Reddish Egret, Dark Morph

Another one of our favorite birds is the oystercatcher; once again there are only about 400 pairs in Florida and at least three pairs at Caladesi Island Park. Some days when we walked the beach we were lucky enough to see all three pair, each pair had a different beach area to call home.

Oystercatcher

The grassy area near the marina is a common place to find armadillos after sunset and gopher tortoises during the heat of day. The gopher tortoise is another declining species and is protected by law. We had never seen either of these animals before.

Armadillo

Gopher Tortoise

Great Blue Heron

The 108 slip marina was frequently visited by both water birds and

dolphin catching fish and by catfish cleaning the bottoms of boats.

There was rarely a dull moment! Add to that the colorful sunrises and sunsets and you've got a perfect formula for enjoyment.

Sunrise

Sunset

We frequently found animals or plants that we had no idea what they were. The park rangers were always willing to help us identify our findings and they encouraged us to look through their collection of books of nature such as reptiles,

birds,

shells, flowers,

Florida Wildlife, etc.

Lizard Shedding his Skin

As former teachers, we greatly appreciated the rangers’ efforts to help us learn more about the new environment that we were experiencing and enjoying. We were surprised to see the difference between “northern lupine” and southern lupine”. The southern ones have a very different leaf and a bit of a fuzzy covering over the green parts. They are very showy and add a bit of color to the beach scrub areas where cabbage palm, saw palmetto, and wax myrtle are the predominate vegetation.

Caladesi Island was first settled in the early 1890’s by a homesteader from Switzerland, Henry Scharrer. In order for him to set up a homestead on the island he had to be a US citizen, live on the land for five years, and make sufficient improvements to the land, such as a livable house, cleared land, and planted fields. He married an Irish woman who was working in Dunedin as a companion to a wealthy lady from Cleveland. In 1895 they had a baby girl they named Myrtle after the wax myrtle plant that is common on the island. After Myrtle was grown and married, she eventually moved back to the island. Some of their old home foundations still exist. The path that leads back to Myrtle’s old home passes by several old osprey nests. While we were there one of the old nests was being used by a great horned owl and her two owlets. Bill and I checked the nest on a regular basis and were rewarded by seeing not only the very young, nearly white owlets with their ever watchful mother or father and then later the well colored ready to “fly away” older owlets without their watchful parent. We actually saw them away from their nest the day before they left the nest for good. What fun!

We had the good fortune of meeting an English artist, Trevor Crompton, who was vacationing in Clearwater Beach, FL. We had many "chats on the beach" and we shared some of our bird and owl photos with him. The day before he flew back to England he gave us a very life-like watercolor painting done from one of our photos. We are hoping to see him again next winter when we'll probably all be back at Caladesi Island for a few days.

Bill Working on Barge

In order to stay at Caladesi for such a long time we had to do volunteer work. Bill’s main duties involved tearing up a wooden walkway, which was suffering from old age and which had many splinters and rotten wood sections, and replacing it with a paver brick walkway near the educational kiosks. He and Neil, a volunteer from Vermont, did a super job on the walkway. Mary’s main duties involved office work, answering phones, collecting fees for boat slip usage, and occasional computer work. Both of us also worked as campground hosts by helping boaters dock and just walking around talking to other guests. We helped keep the beach and trails “trash free”. Whenever something needed doing, we tried to help.

An Approaching Storm

The rangers were marvelous. They went out of their way to be sure we got to do the fun jobs and not only the essential ones. They arranged a boat trip for us to Anclote Key and Three Rooker Island, both major bird-nesting areas,

and also had the ranger on Anclote Key give us a guided tour of the newly restored lighthouse on the island.

View from Anclote Key Lighthouse

We did an early morning kayak trip to the north island in the park to be sure the bird nesting signs and flags were in place. The nesting season for wading birds is just getting underway, so signs and roping off areas is essential. We’re hoping that when we pass through this week that more nesting will be obvious.

Since we left Caladesi Island State Park last week we’ve gone about a hundred miles south to Punta Gorda where we attended a MTOA rendezvous. There were about 170 boaters there and we all attended seminars, socialized, and had a good time. The rendezvous ended Sunday morning, but it was rainy and windy, so we decided to stay one more night before heading back north. After we leave the rendevous we have two goals in sight, Caladesi Island for a couple of nights and then we’ll head back to Mobile and up the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Black Warrior River. We will be leaving the boat in Tuscaloosa for the summer, about 337 miles north of Mobile, AL and will be driving the truck back to Rhode Island.