St. Joseph's Peninsula - Paddling on Porpoise & Oysters

Well, Tuesday's move from Missississpi to Florida was successful, though it took longer than expected - we ended up getting in after the campsite had closed for the night and had to use our secret decoder ring to get in the gate. A set-up of camp after dark and fried left-over pizza (Thanks Ken, Jen & Martha!)for dinner with an Abita beer.

Wednesday dawned bright and beautiful and we hopped right into paddling (well, about 11:00 am GST) and paddled in Eagle Bay on the sheltered side of the peninsula. One highlight was the family of dolphins that were swimming near us. Looked like 3 adults and 2 little (+/- 4') guys. What a kick!

Geezer Mike is used to having a "tupperware" plastic kayak and is not used to the attention you get when you land on the beach in a beautiful wooden kayak. Adds about 45 minutes to each paddling trip. What do they weigh? What kind of wood is that? I'll tell you - these things are real babe magnets.

After a tough paddle (ALMOST 3 MILES!!!!!!), we retired to the camper for a "Whelan" (see earlier posts) then rose for a trip into town for some dinner. We landed at Regans Pub and Oyster Bar, a VERY local joint, where we had the nicest,freshest oysters so far. Raw or baked these things were great. Top it off with a couple of cold beers and the Geezers were in heaven! Back to camp by 11:00 PM, just beating the rain, wind, thunderstorms and lightning that pelted us from about midnight till mid-morning on Thursday.


Today was forecast to be rainy all day, but by mid-day, the sun was trying to break through, though it never made it. But it was dry! We tool a walk on a nature trail, drove around to do some birding, then headed the 20 miles back into civilization to do some laundry and get caught up on electronic tasks, like e-mail and the Geezer Blog. A little din-din and we will head back to the campsite to get ready to move on to Manatee Springs (near Chiefland, FL) for the next few days of freedom before the Geezerettes join us next week.