Wekiva River

I paddled the Wekiva River this morning, Tuesday, April 28, 2009 with a special guest. My sister, Monica. Her second appearance on Dave's Yak Tales.
http://davesyaktales.blogspot.com/2007/12/sanibel-part-ii.html
I think she has tied brother Pete with two appearance on Dave's Yak Tales.
She was in town of a yoga seminar. Which got me thinking, and I sent her the floowing message:

if you can miss a morning or afternoon session to go kayaking..... I can arrange my schedule to get a morning or afternoon off. Hmmm... breathing, rhythmic arm movements, I'm practicing yoga with even knowing it in the yak.

We met at Wekiwa Springs State Park and were on the River at 9:30. It was good to have a companion. At the suggestion of a fellow paddler I wheeled the yak down a boardwalk instead of the sand/dirt hill. I learned I cannot navigate two turns. So, Monica lifted the back end to negotiate the turns, My yak is 14 foot, I believe J.B''s is 9.

We launched just in time. An armada of canoes was on the beach. I asked the canoe wrangler who they were for. "A school group of twenty one" If it was a school group, it must have been a private one, as public schools don't have the 2-1 teacher-pupil ratio I saw later in the morning.



Monica and I had a leisurely two hour paddle. More leisurely for me than her, in a rental Otter kayak.

The only otter we saw. Lots of alligators.

Speaking of vicious creatures, I gave in and made the google billionaires 20 bucks richer by purchasing a year of storage. Google has a 1GB limit of free storage. They owe me a day. The website states "it may take 24 hours". It got well past that time, and "My Account" stated I have 10GB storage. Yet I still could not download pics. No answer to a email for help. It took some digging to find the answer. I had to go to the Picassa site first, then back to Bloger. It would be nice if they told users that from the get go.

But, I'm back.

The advantage of having a fellow paddler. This is the first picture showing all of the new kayak. And first of me since brother Pete and I kayaked at the Currituck Lighthouse.

http://davesyaktales.blogspot.com/2008/08/north-carolina-outer-banks.html

We paddled to past Wekiva Marina to the beginning of the open area with the large Indian Mound in the distance. I was pressed for time, so we turned back. We saw limpkins, ibis, blue great blue, green herons, anhingas, red shouldered hawks, wood ducks, and vultures.

Female wood duck.

Great blue heron.

Green heron.

Turtles.

We saw a huge snapping turtle in the lagoon just off the launch as we started out. Probably the same one I've seen many times. Monica saw it first. We passed a log on our left, and I said to look for an alligator. The log was vacant. On the return it was occupied by the turtle and alligator in the first photo. There were half a dozen litttle gators visible to our left as we approached the big one. Must be mama. We landed afer a nice two hour paddle. No time for dip in the Spring.

On a technical note, the $20 I spent may be worth it. Pictures take just as long to download, but it seems once posted, it is much easier to drag them from the top of the page to the body of the Tale.