Silver Springs State Park
Our second winter in Florida and we finally got to kayak the most talked about Silver Springs State Park in Ocala. Let me tell you it did not disappoint. I knew we had a chance of seeing Monkeys, I did not realize we would also see Manatee, alligators and an abundance of turtles. Also amongst our sitings were a couple of Hawks, lots of water foul and a wood pecker.
We took the Fort King Paddling Trail out, other than a hawk we also saw a few alligators. We did the mile out to the main river where we could go right on the Silver River toward Ray Wayside Park 4.6 miles away or do just the circle back to the launch. We decided to head right toward Ray Wayside Park. I am glad we did as just around the corner is where we saw all the monkeys. They ranged from what appeared to be adult size and a few babies.
The paddling downstream was obviously easy, we went about 2 miles and decided to turn around as it was getting late and knowing that the paddle back would be a lot harder. We saw so many turtles, it was amazing. There were some really large ones and small ones too! Same with alligators, we saw babies and big ones all sunning themselves.
On the way back upstream we again saw some of the monkeys as well as the manatee. A fellow paddler told us about some manatee hanging in a small pool area, so I took some more pictures of them, they were hanging more on the surface of the water as it was more shallow there.
We then ventured back to the take out, all in all we kayaked 5 1/4 miles in 3 1/2 hours which made for a great day!!
Brasher Park/Durney Key Island
A few days later we went back out to Durney Key Island off of Port Richey. This is not a long paddle but a nice way to spend a day. This island is about a mile off of Brasher Park, a lot of boaters of all types stop here to have lunch, take a swim or just hang! It’s pretty small but has a nice beach area. We took a lunch with us and hung out for a couple of hours. We started off on our own but had many visitors during our time, lots of dog visitors too!!!
On our way out to the island we saw a lot of pairs of dolphins, it is always a pleasure to see dolphins, I have not seen this many at one time, it was great!!! Even while on the island we spotted a pair swimming by! The water going out was smooth as can be with mild winds, later on the way back it was a little more choppy but not bad at all. Because we went around the island not he way out our total trip was 2 1/2 miles with only 1 hour and 20 minutes of paddle time. This is usually closer to 1/2 hour each way but we stoped a lot to watch the dolphins.
Vagabond2019 