Our destination is Sandfly Island.  We launch our kayaks into Chokoloskee Bay and the island strewn rim of the Gulf of Mexico at Everglades City.  We catch the final stages of low tide and ride the current out toward the maze of mangrove islands just a mile or so out.  There is a light breeze and warm sun.  Perfect.  We are along a channel but powerboat traffic is light and the float a peaceful one. Hmm, Sandfly Island is supposed to have a dock and we should have seen it by now.  Map check time.  Turns out we are in Indian Key Pass not Sandfly Island Pass.  Oops.  No biggie we just explore the side bays and channels until the tide starts back in then ride the current back toward our launch.  We take a brief detour to prove to ourselves that can indeed find Sandfly Island Pass (we did) then catch a favorable wind that pushes us all the way home.  Our path carries us across the wild splashing of a feeding frenzy of two bottle nose dolphins.  It was wondrous to watch.

Imagine looking up at tree roots and those roots have barnacles and oyster shells on them. That’s what happens at low tide in a kayak among red mangrove.  These trees are amazing.  The elegantly curving stilts of the intertwined roots create islands in the open water then the falling leaves decay creating soil to build land and an entire interdependent ecosystem develops.

We had an “I can’t believe what I am seeing” moment. A reddish tan long bodied mammal was swimming between islands out in the pass.  This picture is pretty grainy but my first impression was maybe a fox but with this pic we think it was a Florida panther.