Jan.17-18, 2015 Everglade City to Little Shark River

Jan 17-18: Everglade City to Little Shark River

 

Departed at 0907 from Indian Key pass.  Ran just inside the Everglades National Park boundary to avoid the crab pots.  Water was nice, ride was smooth.  Had a problem with port engine alternator, but that seemed to sort itself out as the temperature returned to normal.  We continued to check it every thirty minutes for a couple of hours and so far so good.    We encountered more crab pots outside the park boundaries the farther south we traveled.  We arrived at Little Shark River and proceeded up past the lagoon and anchored at the 11 foot depth mark on the chart.  Anchor was down at 1443.  The rest of the afternoon was relaxing until 1505 when Colletta landed her first sea trout.  It was a keeper but she threw it back.  We were in the cabin before dusk to avoid the attack of the mosquitoes.  We were only partially successful, as Colletta spent most of the evening killing mosquitoes rather than watching the movie on the computer.

 

The Admiral trying to catch dinner.

After a scrumptious breakfast made by the captain, we launched the dinghy to go exploring.  We followed the channel all the way to Oyster Bay which was a large body of water within the Everglades.  It is everything you would expect a Florida swamp to be.  Mangroves on both sides of the river with swift flowing tides.  The wild life consisted of many different kinds of birds, manatee, sea turtles and dolphins.  The dolphins were amazing as they hunted dinner among the mangrove roots.  They were in very shallow water chasing their dinner at low tide.  Their feeding and splashing in shallow water also attracted herons looking to pick up an easy dinner from any wounded fish.  We watched two trawlers come into the channel.  They can up river on a dinghy ride when they saw our Looper flag.  They stopped to say Hi and then invited us back to their boat for cocktails.  They were Jim and Belinda on Rickshaw and Gabe and Gail on Sea Wolf.  After sharing and charting discussions, we will leave together in the morning all heading to Marathon.

Cocktail hour after heavy work fishing

 

Sunset on the Little Shark River taken from inside the boat because the mosquitoes would  carry you off if you were outside