Front Row Ticket To The Real Florida!

Warning!! This blog post is from an un-apologetic, un-abashed, NATIVE Floridian. Yes, we are a dying breed.

Today we took Walt out for its maiden voyage. Walt is a two person inflatable kayak from Sea Eagle. June and I have talked numerous times about purchasing just such a craft. One evening at Long Point we were sitting outside and a couple went cruising past in their inflatable kayak and we were sold.

I have to stop here and explain that being a native Floridian, I bristle whenever I hear when someone mention Florida and the first thing asked is if that person has been to Disney. I just want to scream! I have gone to great lengths to show June the REAL Florida and all that it has to offer. I will give full credit to June that she has been extremely receptive and patient to my ramblings. We have visited several Florida state parks and have seen numerous wonderful things and learned boatloads, and none of them have anything to do with a corporate rodent. I'll get off my soapbox now.

Anyway, so we took Walt out in the south Brevard area among the numerous spoil islands near Sebastian Inlet. Getting to see up close to the way Florida once was before condos, and hotels, and urban sprawl was extremely refreshing to say the least. Ospreys diving for their lunch. Pelicans fighting over a fish scrap. Mullet jumping right next to us. Clouds of gnats floating on the water (they don't bite). Thousands of thick layers of mangroves along the shorelines. Smelling the musk of the crappy. Seagrass and horseshoe crabs in the water below. Seeing one or two manatee so close that we could have touched them with a paddle. Letting the wind push us as we drift along a water passageway between two islands. It brought back a whole flood of boyhood memories of fishing in places just like this.

I truly hope that June enjoyed today as much as I did. I am beyond happy that places like this still exist and are there to be seen and enjoyed if searched out. Yeah ok, it's not the overblown glitz of Disney or Sea World, or Universal. It IS the real Florida and one that I take the most pride in.

I know, I said I would get off my soapbox.

Mango