Yesterday's Buffett quote was a clue that I was heading out to sea. I know it was Father's day, and it may have sounded like I was heading home to St. Auggie to see mine, but we agreed to postpone Father's Day until next weekend since Jr. had to be away for a basketball camp in Naples this weekend.

So, darn it, I had to settle for just another day on the Gulf of Pure Florida surrounded by tropical (okay, SUBtropical) beauty and more friggin Frigate Birds than you could count.

Ho Hum.

I hope Rurality is reading this 'cause I remember a past post of her's where she got pretty excited about a frigate bird.

We cruised out of Cedar Key aboard the USS Summerschool and headed over to North Key for play time on the sandbar we have christened "OUR Beach". The crew sunbathed and swam there while I took the boat out a bit for some fishing. That's another post.

This post is post beach play. When the tide swallowed our little sandbar on North Key, we headed south to Seahorse Key to sightsee. Seahorse Key is still off limits to humans so that the cormorants, pelicans, frigate birds, egrets, herons, and ... (I believe) peterodactyls can finish their breeding and chick raising.

These keys: Deadman's, Seahorse, North, Snake, and Atsenia Otie are all part of Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge ... thanks to Teddy Roosevelt. As I am fond of saying, "We own these together"... you and I.




In a few weeks, it will be legal to park the boat and walk this wild shoreline, but for now, this is as close as you can get. Seahorse Key is dramatically higher than any of the other keys in the refuge collection. It's essentially an ancient ice age relic dune from our recently (geologically speaking) flooded shoreline.

Extending out from this Gulf side shore are extensive shallow grassflats that just go on and on. We had a strong high tide at this point so we were able to cruise in areas where, at low tide, we'd have to tilt the motor and pole ... or get out and walk towing Summer School behind you.
Been there, done that.

The crew on this fine day consisted of Captain FC, First Mate Mrs. FC, Emma and Alex. Now, Alex is Welsh... which means he's British, but we still let him come along. We enjoy his company even though both Sir Francis Drake (British!) and Henry Morgan (British too!) burned my home town to the ground.
Alex has promised to behave, but we still don't let him near matches or lighters.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Sevice has posted signs and watchbirds around the perimeter of the island to ensure the breeding bird's privacy. The birds seem to really appreciate this because every tree on Seahorse seems to be festooned with nesting or resting birds.

You may want to click on the photo above to count the pelicans roosting on the oaks. I had to shoot them from outside the closed area signs so the shot is a little distant.

A little closer cropped view of one pelican oak on Seahorse Key.

Ya' know ...

When these islands were set aside in the 1930's, most of Florida still looked like the scenes above. At the time, my Dad was about 10 years old, his son and grandkids distant points in the future, yet the adults of the era were thinking about us.

The wonder of that never ceases to amaze me.