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Posted by Jeff Weber on 09:31:03 11/13/06
I paddled Coot Bay in a canoe yesterday, but the strong wind in this large bay ultimately proved too much for me to make any headway beyond the point near Marker 4 on the west shore (about a mile north of the Buttonwood Canal entrance). I discovered the value of loading a canoe evenly under such conditions, as all my weight in the back made the craft behave like a weathervane, and even with backpaddling I couldn't keep my bow into the wind for long. Oddly, the people I was trying to meet as they came south through Tarpon Creek said (via marine band radio) that Whitewater Bay was like glass, despite the fact that it's a much larger body of water.
There were lots of Blue-Winged Teal in Coot Bay. On the way down, I got a nice photo of a Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow on the roadside just south of Mahogany Hammock.
The mangrove creek into Coot Bay from Coot Bay Pond has significant blockage from fallen limbs, even though we had no hurricanes this year. One tree across the creek is only 18 inches off the water, and the only way I could get under it was to lie on my back on the canoe floor and pull my way past by hand. This, of course, was an open invitation to the hundreds of spiders adorning the limbs to drop into the boat, many of them on my face. Felt like I was on "Fear Factor."
Hope this creek is cleared before we do the Coot Bay/ENP count next month, as it'll be pretty hard to get to our normal counting spots, otherwise.
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