Ding Darling

7947 Wildlife Drive, Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  Not the first photo.  The next several on the way to the second kayak launch.

Yellow crowned night herons enjoying the morning

Star fish

Under way at 8:30

Into Pine Island Sound

Then into the canals

 

Sea grapes

 

 

 If driving on Wildlife Drive, this bridge is on your right, just before you go out to Sanibel-Captiva Road

 

 Wildlife Drive. I had to turn around.

 

 Mangrove, or bridge, crab.

 

 Good sign

 

 

 

 

 

Clouds roll in

11:38. Perfect timing to land, sit in the car and eat lunch as the rain fell.

 12:18, back on the water.

 

 

 The secret spoonbill spot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This is one of the islands across from the Wildlife Drive Observation Tower

 

Reddish egret

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 More sea grapes.  I have seen the broad leaves for years.  Don't recall seeing the seeds/buds, before.  A seasonal thing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Landed (again) at 3:15

 The bridge I paddled under in the morning.

 As I write on September 25, two months after the fact, I wonder why is this picture, of the water from Wildlife Drive, taken after the bridge?   As it is before the bridge.  Because I could not find a water bottle in the car, so went back to get it at the launch.  Where I could not find it.  Because it was in the car. Just not where I looked the first time.

 An opportunity for more photos

 

 Went to a condo complex near the lighthouse

 

 

 I bought a Cuban at the East End Deli and went back to the Wildlife Refuge

 

 Figured I'd get a breeze on the Observation Tower

Back in the kayak

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Landed at 7:55