Collier Seminole State Park, Day 2

 The Turner River is 20 miles east of Collier-Seminole State Park on the highway the Bay City Walking Dredge helped build. (See the prior Tale)  I wanted to get on the water before the tour groups.

On the water at 7:50.  Just one tour group.  If you can call a couple and a guide a "group"

The Turner River has very long, and beautiful, mangrove tunnels.  They are not so beautiful if you are behind a lot of people, or waiting for paddlers coming in the other direction.

I did not get to the tunnels.  The River was high, and flowing swiftly.   I could have ducked under the Tamiami Trail bridge.  But paddling back, would have been tough, and paddling upstream in the mangrove tunnels would have been difficult.  So, I did the relatively short and open, up River paddle.

Asters

The glades go on forever.

Air plants

Only on the water for an hour/

A stop at the Nathiel Reed Visitor Center.   Big Cypress National Preserve.

.Back to Collier-Seminole State Park

It was not that bad.  As long as you were wearing a burka.

Broke camp and headed to the boat ramp.

 Gator in the boat basin

Another gator down the Blackwater River

I wanted to make it to Mud Bay.  As I paddled past channel markers, I thought, "You are in the wrong channel, dummy"

So I reversed course, and found the junction and narrow channel to Mud Bay.

I made the same mistake the last time I was here.  At least then, I saw manatees in the deeper channel.

Roseate spoonbill on Mud Bay.

The tidal flow in the channel from Mud Bay was flowing in the opposite direction as the flow in the main channel.

.

.A 3 hour tour.

The gator was still there.  That's a fishing line.