Bald Point Florida - snakes and birds and plants

Pictures from Bald Point, Florida trip - March 2014

We spent four days in a house on Bald Point, Florida last week.  This state park is on the southwestern side of Ochlockonee Bay.  It's the point where the bay opens into the Gulf.  Find Panacea, Florida on the map, follow US 98 southwest, and there ya are.

Bald Point has a couple of dozen houses and nothing else, but is completely surrounded by Bald Point State Park, which in turn is pretty much surrounded by St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge and the Gulf of Mexico.  It's near several other state parks, two great clear-water kayaking rivers (the St. Marks upper portion and the Wakulla), and within easy driving distance to the award-winning St. George Island sugar sand beaches.  You can eat in Panacea or at the bridge over the Ochlockonee Bay, or drive to Apalachicola for an evening.

We had a good weekend walking on the beach, paddling in black water (the lower Wakulla and Otter Lake Recreation area) watching birds, catching minnows in the brackish water, and eating good seafood.  Since it's early spring, we saw a lot more snakes than usual, which is always cool.

A good many of these photos were shot with my Olympus water-resistant point and shoot camera, so the quality isn't great and they aren't meant to be art...

View Across the marsh.  There's a bald eagle in the dead pine in the middle. 

Wandering around in the interior of the park, there were a good many deer - here's a pair of does (one behind the palmettos) that stood and watched me for a good while.

We had warm, sunny weather until the day we came home.  Sunday was cloudy, cool and foggy.  This view across the end of the bay, towards Mashes Beach, was within an hour of low tide.  The oyster bars in the bay attract predatory fish and things that like to catch them (people and dolphin) like crazy.

Otter Lake Recreation Area in St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge, near Panacea, FL.  This cypress has a water oak growing out of a hollow in it.

One of the small jelly fish that wash up on the beach - the patterns are neat.

American Kestrel that visited us each morning.  I couldn't tell if it had gotten wet from dew each night or from swimming or bathing, but it came to the dead tree in the back yard and preened every day. 

I think Otter Lake Recreation Area should be renamed Osprey Lake.  There are more nesting pairs of osprey there in the spring than I thought possible in such a small lake.  This one was solo, but spent its time fussing at anything that moved around it.

A pair of osprey at the edge of the lake (sorry - this was my point and shoot waterproof camera)

A towhee near Chaire's Creek bridge in Bald Point State Park

A gnatcatcher??? on the point at Bald Point State Park.

I had good luck with snakes this weekend.  This is a scarlet kingsnake (not a coral snake).  Found under some wood in the scrub near Chaire's Creek bridge in Bald Point State Park.  This little snake posed for me - you can see that the end of his nose is red - one way to tell a scarlet king from a coral snake.  For a more thorough guide - see the Florida Museum of Natural History site

Brown water snake on the Wakulla River, laying up on a tree in the water.  A couple of other paddlers told us to be careful of the copperhead.  This isn't one - notice the checkerboard patterns and the non-triangular head?  Also, it was IN the water.  Copperheads can swim, but prefer not to. This one was clearly living in the water.  Not a great shot - my waterproof point and shoot doesn't like to be within three feet of the subject...

Tiny sparkleberry (wild blueberry) plants

Another type of wild blueberry - haven't figured out the species yet.

Mounting my all-around light for fishing/kayaking at night

I was trying to figure out a light for my fishing kayak to complement a headlamp.  I'll post later why I wanted an all-around instead of bow/stern lights.

I knew how I wanted to do the pole itself, and want it to be truly portable, so wanted a battery based light, but one I wouldn't have to replace every time I dropped it in the water.

At the suggestion of some great person on the 'net, I got the Fantasea Nano Spotter light from B&H photo (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/527259-REG/Fantasea_Line_6023_Nano_Spotter.html).  I can't remember what forum had someone share the link, but appreciate whoever/wherever it was.

Nice things about it:  It's got bright LEDs, is truly waterproof for my purposes, and it has the diffuser already.

Minuses - the base is not round.

That's not really a problem, though.  I took 3/4" PVC and heat gun.  I wrapped two or three wraps of electical tape around it before forming the pipe with the light, so it would be tight but not impossible to remove. Heat PVC, smoosh, let cool, pull out the light, dunk in a bucket to "set" the shape.

While I was at it, I made two.  I then cut the formed piece off and sanded any roughness from the heat off, along with the lettering.

Once glued into a slip/female thread coupler that attaches to the top of my 3/4" light pole with a matching male thread.  I painted the whole light pole black. I actually wish I hadn't painted it, but I got PVC solvent all over it, and didn't like the purple streaks.  I plan on using reflective tape bands around it anyhow.

I sprayed liquid electrical tape inside, so the light press fits in. If it seems at risk of falling out, I'll probably add a hole big enough for the lanyard strap, and use a toggle or something.

One thing I thought of doing was using a tee at the top, having one light shining up, one forward --maybe even without the diffuser.

The photo is the spare I made, and may use for the forward facing light.  I'll get a picture of it on the kayak sometime.

Bit by a bug...a fishing bug

I got bitten by the kayak fishing bug, and am learning to like some things I figured I never would. After trying several times to fish from my "Artic", then having my pirogue blow the bottom laminations (see earlier post), I decided to get a Sit on Top. Of course, I looked for one that was as much like a sea kayak as possible - an "LPB" (Long Pointy Boat) as some of the skin boat folks call them.

I ended up with a used Wilderness Systems' Tarpon 160i. It's definitely long/pointy, but I was still afraid it would be like riding a cork, as my other experiences with SoTs were like that.

It isn't. It tracks very well, has pretty good speed, and once I get an appropriately longer paddle than my Werner Camano, will be da bomb for fishing.

It was already set up for fishing, even with some things I probably won't use, like fish finder mounts.

Here are a couple of pictures that were sent by the guy I got it from (he bought a Hobie Pedal drive boat).

I'll have to see if it becomes my 'go to' boat for just messing about - the "Artic" still fits that bill, since it's light, fast, and easy to unload.

Paddling spot - headwaters of Lake Blackshear

 My latest spot for a quick paddle is on the top end of Lake Blackshear, near Drayton, GA. It's not as "birdy" this time of year as I expect it is in the spring and early summer, but there are wading birds and ducks, plus tons of turtles. Here's a Google earth image.

Flint River south of the Hwy 27 Bridge

The arrow points to a launch called "Camper's Haven".  There's a little store + bar and grill there, and I believe the launch itself is owned by someone else.  You drop your $2 launch fee in the box and take off.  The concrete ramp is both steep enough and shallow enough to launch from there.

Notice the sloughs on both sides of the big S curve?  They are relatively deep, full of fish, turtles and birds. Just south of here is where the former state record alligator was taken, so I know there are big and small gators around.  Traffic on the river isn't bad, and I don't stay in the channel much.  The current's pretty slow too, so ferrying across is effortless.

I need to fish more here and see what I can turn up.  General map coordinates from Google: 32.044605,-83.963835.

My now deceased Pirogue - "Boueux"

In a post from February of 2011, I was trying to decide whether to build a pirogue to fish from or a kayak for longer touring.  By the end of August of 2012, I'd made up my mind and started a pirogue, to be named "Boueux", which means muddy in French and sounds kinda like "Boo".  Here's the one photo I remembered to take:

The plan was for a 14-1/2 foot long, 24 inch beam boat.

I got the main body glued up and to the point of glassing it when my mom had her stroke.  That put my weekends on hold, so the boat sat under plastic in the yard all winter and most of the spring.

This past summer, I started sanding and fairing.  The boat building instructor at the Apalachicola Maritime Museum convinced me that I didn't need to glass it, especially since I hadn't used marine ply.

I sanded and sealed, puttied and faired, and had her looking pretty good:



This photo is 'done', just before painting the gunwales and inside of the hull.  I'd finally gotten it dried in, fully painted, and was ready for a weekend trial when we had a couple of weeks of non-stop rain, then three days of unusually hot sun.

Well, the laminations in the plywood couldn't handle that.  They decided to blow out the bottom.

Guess I will paddle my kayaks after all.  Lesson learned:  If you're going to be a shade tree boat builder, get the wood soaked with epoxy or whatever finish as early as possible, OR...get a workshop.

I think I'll name my Tarpon 160i "Boueux Deux"

Pirogue or skin boat?

Still musing on whether to build a pirogue or a skin boat once the weather settles down enough to let me get outside and work.

Black 'yote

I drove up north of Ellaville, GA on US 19 late this evening, looking for the road to a friend's where I've been invited to come and hunt.

On the way back, just north of where GA 26 crosses, a black something crossed the divided highway in front of me and jumped the guardrail. I was pretty sure it was canine, but it looked odd, so I slammed on the brakes and crossed the road to see it.  I stood on the big 8x8 guardrail supports and looked, and as it got to the edge of the trees, it stopped and looked at me.  A pretty big, solid black coyote.  I've seen lots of very large coyotes in the south.  This one wasn't all that big, but was clearly a coyote and not a dog.  Thing is, it was solid black.  I've never seen one, other than in pictures (http://bit.ly/d8W5ug) has a few Georgia 'yote pics, especially some from the Georgia Outdoor News forums.

It only stared at me for a few seconds, then a car went by and it slipped into the treeline.  When it was out of sight, I howled at it, and got a bark in response.

I knew they existed (this article discusses them), but had never seen one.  As I was leaving the house, I was thinking I should have grabbed my camera, but I decided that my cell phone camera was enough.  It wasn't; all I got is blurry trees.  Yeah, I'm sure it's a 'yote, not a dog, even though there are black dogs on the property a half mile up the hill.  If you've seen - or more importantly heard - coyotes in the southeast, you know one when you see and hear it clearly.

Way cool.