Kayaking to Caledesi

With our friend Tim visiting from Seattle, we decided to try kayaking to Caledesi Island. Mark was hesitant as he doesnt trust little boats. But we found these kayaks to be very stable....and very slow. I guess there are trade offs to stability.
The water was warm and clear. Except for crossing the boating channel, it was so shallow that you could walk over to the island. We got to Caledesi from the Dunedin causeway pretty quickly and landed on pristine, white sandy beach, complete with a wide assortment of unbroken sea shells. When we started examining them, we found most still inhabited, so we left them on the beach.
After a hike around the north side of the island, we decided it was time for more kayaking. So we confidently hopped onto our plastic boats and paddled...and paddled...and paddled around the mangroves to the island marina.

Along the way, we saw osprey, egrets, and an assortment of other birds living among the trees. All around us mullets were leaping up from the water. We kept thinking we could just reach out and catch them, but never could.
Tim, being the fair skinned Irish boy that he is, needed to get out of the sun. So we took a break at the marina snack bar and watch the tourists arrive from Honeymoon Island aboard the State run ferryboat. We decided they were all wimps!!

We were slowing down on the trip back to the causeway, partly because the tide was going out and we had less and less water to ride on. And maybe a little bit because our arms were getting tired. The excitement came when we had to cross the boat channel which is deep so boats can get out to the Gulf. By this time of day, early afternoon on a Saturday, everyone was heading out. And they werent driving slow. So, we got up our courage and paddled as fast as we could as very tall and big boats motored on either side of us. We hurdled their wakes like outrigger canoes in Oahu waves. And finally, we found ourselves in sandy, shallow water just feet from the rental shop. Whew!!