Honeymoon Island

On the south side of the causeway there is plenty of parking along it's length and a variety of characters engaged in leisure activities: fishing,sunbathing, jogging, sailing, and of course, kayaking. There are some unusual craft here, and one type of craft you don't usually see in a saltwater area-canoes. Most people go south into the bay, perhaps over to Caladesi because this section of the bay is somewhat sheltered from the north winds. The only problem is crossing the marked channel where powerboats and sailboats return from the gulf. As with any channel, crossing it straight across quickly is the best practice. This is not a wide channel, so it's fairly easy. The edges of the channel can be determined by the color of the channel markers, remember the old adage "red right returning", so the green marker then marks the north side of the channel in this place, and the red is the far side.

On this trip, I headed north,first going under the causeway bridge, for a counterclockwise circumnavigation of the island. The reason for this was a NW wind of 10 knots forecast to shift to the North. Going out against a wind and returning with the wind (same thing with river current) insures an easy trip back if tired, sore, or muscle cramped. The geography of this area funnels a north wind under the bridge and combined with current, makes it choppy. Passing under the bridge, one must watch for fishing lines. Once past the bridge, a loud splash 150 feet away confirmed the presence of porpoises chasing mullet. A pair of them surfaced, rolling in unison. I tried to get photographs of them, but they traveled too far away. The chop turned into more regular seas of 1 foot waves away from the bridge cut, and I settled in for the open water paddle to the NE end of the island. Could have paddled west past the condos and along the mangrove coast, but I find mangroves boring, and I was looking for some beach, so I picked a NW course.

Continuing north, the brush gives way to a curved beach curling around to a bird nesting area. Birds have a tendency to spook if you get too close to them and as they all take to the air, they often lighten their load as an unlucky couple just ahead of me, paddling a tandem, found out when they cut too close to the bird area. My advice, stay clear of large groups of birds, you don't want to get bombed, nor do you really want to land and walk around in bird mess. Past the birds, I started around the NW tip into the Gulf. Currents usually whip around points such as this, and the confused, choppy waves can make for a sloppy passage. Here, I was wishing I had a spray skirt. Once through, the waves became more regular, and easier to negotiate. If there had been a west wind, rounding the point would have been much rougher. On the Gulf side, the nearly deserted beach stretched for miles.

The north part of the seaward side of the island is mostly sand with few rocks, but as you travel south, the rockiness of the beach increases greatly.

Inarguably, the best part of the island is the northern beach. Every so often, there is a sturdy bench just in front of the vegetation, and going south, you see more people, some of them odd. There was a fat man in a speedo brief at one bench that everyone else steered clear of. The waves began to change angle as I rounded the bend in the coastline which brought rear quartering waves. The seaward trek could be wet and sloppy with enough wind. Once I got within sight of the first pavilion, I knew it wouldn't be much further.

Once back at the causeway, I went over to the kayak rental place to look at the kayaks and catamaran sailboats. The man running the place seemed knowledgeable about the local area, and most of the rental kayaks were more higher end than my own.

This paddle proved to be an interesting voyage. Knowing the weather makes the difference between a cold, wet, hard slog, and a pleasant trip. If the conditions you find once you get there aren't favorable, then there's always the back side of either Honeymoon or Caladesi islands that are much more sheltered. Caladesi is an interesting place, but that's for a future article.