Sunday morning was the second night of our kids hosting a sleepover with their BFFs. I consulted the tidal chart for our area and determined that since the low tide wasn't until about 2, that I should be ok to go out and back and still have just barely enough water to float my stand up paddleboard (SUP) into the shoreline when I was ready to return.
The section of Tampa Bay where we live is not actually Tampa Bay at all. It's called Old Hillsborough Bay. (No, there is no "New Tampa Bay". Although there is a town called "New Tampa". And furthermore we have a "Port of Tampa" and a "Port Tampa" that are about 10 miles away from one another and both are working ports in the "City of Tampa".)
Anyway...the section of water where we live is not along the Bayshore sidewalk/sea wall proper. We live on the stretch where the rip wrap is just concrete construction debris and mangroves. So, I heaved my board onto my head, crossed the street, carefully shimmied down the slanted cement surface of the rainwater retention pond drainage outflow, and plunked my board into the water. Ready!
The water was dead flat and extremely tannic from the recent rains coupled with higher than normal tides that steeped the fallen leaves and sea weed to create a salty giant cup of tea. My plan was to bee line to the Yatch Club and then meander in the shallows on the way back, looking though the water hoping to see lots of interesting critters.
After I saw about five stingrays in about a minute, I thought it would be a good idea to count the number of stingrays who crossed my path. In order to be "fair" I chose to only tally the rays who I actually rode over and not the ones just within my line of sight. (They appear and disappear so quickly that I didn't even bother trying to take a photo.) By the time that I got to the Yatch Club, I had 53 stingray flybys!
Once I got to my planned destination, I poked around in the area between the marina and the Ballast Point Pier, where it is very rocky and shallow. Many times, while standing on the dock, I've seen dolphins in this little spot. So, I decided to check it out. But, no. No, dolphins. (At least not here.)
After I paddled around on the northern side of the marina, I eased on up to the breakwater, that is some sort of roosting area for quite a variety of birds: seagulls, pigeons, skimmers, pelicans, egrets, and herons. Trying not to scare them away, I took this time to sit down on my board and text Shawn back.
It was at this point that we started discussing the possibility of going to visit my high school BFF, who I hadn't seen since December of 2000! The plans were super iffy, so I just kept on at my slow pace. (Some of the other texts in the screen shot were way later in the day.)
Feet hanging off the edges and acting like anchors in the very shallow water, I saw a huge disturbance about 20 yards away and then several dorsal fins. DOLPHINS! I hung around to watch that show for about ten minutes. When they moved on to shallower water by the beachy area, I stood up to and followed them, careful not to disturb their feeding frenzy. I was a little scared a few times, thinking I might get toppled by their antics. Another time they swam over to a boat that was anchored off shore, fishing. I was dumbfounded by the fisher men's lack of interest and distracted by my own rubbernecking, causing me to almost wipe out! Once I recovered, I began to notice that the skies were getting gray and the shallow waters were really getting choppy! I figured that it was extra wavy because of the out going tide and only inches deep rocky bottom of the bay. So after snapping this picture from the ruins of a long abandoned private dock, I headed out deeper, hoping to find calmer seas.
After about 45 minutes of battling swells and struggling to keep my south bound course (the waves kept hitting me on my beam side), I finally gave in and just sat on my board. I shortened my paddle from stand up size to about four feet, and just channeled my inner Polynesian ...pretending I was in a dugout canoe, racing to not be a snack for the megaladon who was in hot pursuit.
Eventually, the winds died down and I could just continue my peaceful float through the shallows. But, I was basically home at this point. So, I decided to visit the newly stranded root system that has taken up residence about 100 yards off our dock.
The knotted mass was full of barnacles and many underwater branches that made it almost too scary to hang around for long. Plus I knew the tide was almost about to leave me without any water to float back on. So, land ho.
But the day's adventures were not over! As a family we went for a bike ride on MacDill AFB. And then I took a nine million degree bath. In an overheated daze and trying to cool off, I put on my robe, lay on the bed and fell asleep.
(Insert Ron Popeil's voice...) But that's not all! At 2 am I woke up, looked at Shawn - who was still awake and poking around on his iPad - and announced, "Let's go to St. Augustine and see Mandy!"
Shawn's response, "OK. We'll take our bikes and go in the morning."
:)
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