{"id":8904,"date":"2021-04-08T20:40:24","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T01:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=8904"},"modified":"2021-04-08T20:40:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T01:40:24","slug":"kayak-trip-to-hall-creek-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2021\/kayak-trip-to-hall-creek-2021","title":{"rendered":"Kayak Trip to Hall Creek 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I went for a quick solo kayak trip to Hall Creek<\/strong> near Cedar Key (putting in at the #4 Bridge off of Highway 24. I last visited this area in 2012<\/a> with a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source:Google (Click to Enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The first mile or so is very shallow and I made a few mistakes on my way to Live Oak Key<\/strong>, where there is a narrow channel through the oyster beds. Surprisingly the old oak tree on the point is still alive! [compare with 2012<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Live Oak Key
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The next “bay” is deeper until you approach the creek entrance. I saw lots of birds including a molting Loon<\/strong> and White Pelicans<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Crystal River Nuke Plant in the Distance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I hit the creek near low tide so it was hard to follow. I made several minor wrong turns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campsite sits on an eroded ridge of limestone<\/strong> that provides just enough support for several small hammocks of hardy trees. Since I last visited all the non-palm trees have died<\/strong> (due to hurricanes?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hall Creek Hammock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I saw no evidence<\/strong> of recent use by humans and had to break a trail through the scrub to get to the campsite, which was surprisingly nice considering much of the remaining area has been taken over by prickly pear cactus<\/strong>!
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The View from My Hammock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were a few noseeums in the late afternoon\/morning, and a few mosquitos just after sunset. My Bug Shirt<\/a> handled these with no problem. Two Rosette Spoonbills<\/strong> flew over just as the sun was setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took several walks and saw several birds at a distance. There are small rock outcrops, tidal ponds, more hammocks, and a whole forest of dead trees as you move inland. There were surprisingly few flowers for April, but there was a lot of this ground cover I named gummy-worm plant<\/strong> or gummywort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Finally there was new evidence of global warming \u2014 lots of small Red Mangrove<\/strong> pioneers. There were NONE in 2012 as far as I can remember. This means their range is moving north. The place would be much different if all the islands grew full mangrove ecosystems!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Red Mangrove Seedling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went for a quick solo kayak trip to Hall Creek near Cedar Key (putting in at the #4 Bridge off of Highway 24. I last visited this area in 2012 with a friend. The first mile or so is very shallow and I made a few mistakes on my way to Live Oak Key, … Continue reading “Kayak Trip to Hall Creek 2021”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,268,16,14,10],"tags":[481,267,441],"class_list":["post-8904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-camping","category-flowers","category-photography","category-travel","tag-climate-change","tag-hammock","tag-white-pelican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8904"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8934,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904\/revisions\/8934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}