About three hundred yards out from the quiet stretch of Delray’s beach, I tossed out the anchor. The Yellow Rig floated in ten feet of water clear enough to see the bottom–as good a place as any to float for a while.
Dispatch from Manasota Key. Hands down, the best stretch of Florida coast lies along the fine sand and mangroves from Siesta Key south to Manasota Key. And one of the most beautiful kayaking routes is through Lemon Bay at Stump Pass State Park.
Osprey in Flight
Our time down here in South Florida is the hour before the sun sets. The heat in the air lifts, and songbirds come alive.
Juvenile Mockingbird
Two trips to Oleta River State Park. Eleven and a half miles of adrenaline. Seventy-eight more miles to go, to reach my goal.
Ready to go
In a series of meetings beginning next week, Miami’s public officials will consider plans for MTB trails on Virginia Key. If built, these trails could become the second of a double whammy of great trail networks in South Florida–along with the 10-plus miles of singletrack at Oleta River State Park.
A bike ride along Levee 40 at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge is one of the best ways to take in the everglades. During a seven-mile ride today, I saw dozens of Tri-colored herons, egrets, several Red-winged Blackbirds, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and one baby gator swimming along in the creek east of the levee.
About halfway through the Beautyberry Trail loop at Delray Oaks Natural Area, I wandered off to a narrow, less traveled trail. Sun dripped down between the thick branches of a 60-foot tall, fern-lined Virginia Live Oak. The morning was still cool. A butterfly hovered around a saw palmetto. This is the proper way to start a day.
100 miles of hiking, biking, and kayaking in six weeks is not an Olympian goal.
Cypress at Loxahatchee
Thoreau was a hiker; he was a man who loved to hike. But if he had a mountain bike, he would have zipped around the hills and mountains of New England, climbing up to that perfect lookout over the rolling land. This is what I thought as I rounded the twisty-turns at Oleta State Park Thursday.
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Local bird sightings as reported to eBird:
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” — Henry David Thoreau.
