Kayaking around Florida Mangroves

 Today, Dan and I went kayaking with Capt Yak, aka Greg Stoppelmoor, around Shell Island Preserve. It was a cool winter day, upper 60's, with a light wind at the start, but got a bit stronger toward the late afternoon. The mangrove "caves" were very calm and quiet places to explore. I had never done that before, so it was a lovely new experience. Greg told us there are three types of mangrove trees in Florida, red, black, and white mangroves. The red ones produce seed pods (propagules) that we had seen along the gulf coast. Black mangroves grow taller, and white mangroves tend to grow more inland. 

Another fun part of our afternoon was being joined by, at first just one, then two cormorants! They would dive and swim along with us. It was fun to see them dive, swim ahead a bit, then come up. Unfortunately, we had no fish to share. We also saw a flock of white pelicans in the distance, brown pelicans diving for mullet, which were leaping (for joy?) out of the water ahead of our kayaks. Along our exit point, there was a lovely snowy egret. During the excursion, we also saw an osprey, gulls, terns, and white ibis. It was a wonderful afternoon, and we highly recommend it!

https://www.captyak.net/

https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/trees-and-shrubs/trees/mangroves.html#:~:text=The%20three%20native%20mangrove%20trees,black%20mangrove%20(Lumnitzera%20racemosa)

https://www.google.com/maps/@27.6519899,-82.7239231,14z

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