Ten Thousand Islands

Wednesday, we woke up around sunrise and the bugs were back.  Sandy and I stayed in our tent for a while and watched the raccoons out on the beach.

All food was safely stored in the kayaks, so the raccoons headed into the surf to look for crabs for breakfast.  Since there’s no freshwater on the island, they would drink dew off leaves.  As the sun rose in the sky, the bugs died down and Dave made a great breakfast of eggs and bacon. After eating, we started our paddling tour of the Ten Thousand Islands.  We first headed northwest to Round Key.  It was low tide so a sandbar was sticking out where a number of pelicans and gulls were resting.

After a short break, our next destination was Camp Lulu Key, where we would eat lunch.  Surprisingly, there was a building here.

Apparently, someone came out with a boat and built a house here.  The park service let him squat for a while before finally kicking him out.  The house was all boarded up, but the porch made a nice spot for lunch.

The beach was really pretty here, with one side facing the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the other looking deep into the Ten Thousand Islands.

After lunch, we continued our paddling.  Dave led us through a mangrove tunnel, hoping to find some roseate spoonbills, but no luck.  We spotted a manatee from a distance but too far for a picture.  We then continued back to Picnic Key.  While swimming off our beach, I saw a fish apparently jump really high in the air.  We had seen lots of jumping fish – mullets, I believe – but they only jumped a foot or two in the air.  This one must have been six to eight feet.  Just as he crashed back to the water, a dolphin popped out and ate him.  The fish hadn’t jumped that high – I think the dolphin knocked him out of the water.  For dinner, Dave made jambalaya with sausage and shrimp. Since the bugs were pretty bad the night before, we gathered some driftwood to make a bonfire, which helped quite a bit.

We enjoyed one last sunset from Picnic Key and stayed close to the bonfire to keep the bugs away.  Once they died down, we went for another evening walk on the beach.

With a new moon and no light pollution, the views of the stars were fantastic.  Then we headed to bed.  With the fire built below the high tide line, the waves washed all trace away.