Photos of a living horse conch living in the shallows of the Indian River Lagoon.
Another beautiful day out on the water brought some nice finds. This beautiful living horse conch was crawling along the sandy flats. I picked it up briefly to get a few photos. It was a gorgeous orange snail. The shell was muddy and not so pretty, as is usually the case.
This is the area where this mollusk lives. The water temperature was around 86 degrees F. Air temperature was close to 100. Very few boats came by and we were all alone.
Camping review of our two day trip to Hillsborough River State Campground near Tampa.
We are camping for two nights at the Hillsborough River Campground in Thonotosassa, Florida. My son is going to a concert in Tampa which is about thirty minutes away.
Because it’s July and the weather is hot, I did not plan to do much outside during this trip. I work online and hoped to get a lot of work done, but internet was not great here.
Our site was number 56 on Loop 3 and it was nice. The site was big, with nothing but nature behind us. When booking a campsite, it’s tough to figure which site to choose because not a lot of info is given. Loop 3 seems to have a lot of very nice, shady sites. I did not closely check out either of the other loops, but did walk through one where the permanent tents were set up.
On Saturday morning I took a walk. It was hot and I barely made it back (LOL) but I got some photos of what is offered at this state park. It seems that mostly there are a playground, picnic tables and little pavilion, kayak and canoe rentals, fishing, and trails to explore. This is what I found on my quick walk.
Continue reading “Hillsborough River Camping Trip”A hot and beautiful day on the boat took us to a remote river island, a stop in the ocean, and then to Ponce Inlet. We enjoyed the saltwater to cool off with places to stop and explore along the way.
We chose a hot, sunny day to take a much needed boat ride. It had been a while. But, this day was very hot with a heat index over 100. The water temperature was around 87 and felt very nice, but not very refreshing.
The first stop was a little place along the Indian River. We’ve been here before. In fact it is the place I saw my first and only spider crab.
I did some beach exploring and took photos of what I found. See the shells, a live crown conch, and one feather, in the slideshow below. Every shell, except the living crown conch, had a hermit crab inside.
We don’t often boat up to Ponce Inlet, but my son likes to take our 18 foot flats boat out into the ocean! It is not an ocean-going vessel and is made for shallow backwaters, so I’m never happy about this. We only go just off the end of the inlet and only when it is calm.
The ocean water is a pretty deep blue, and we just sat and enjoyed floating. The photos make it look very calm, and it was, but there were swells. It was hot, as I have mentioned, but swimming in the ocean from the boat, is out of the question. There is no way to get back onboard.
After our quick ocean trip, we went back inshore and followed the channel around by the lighthouse and ended up at a sandbar.
These sandbars by the inlet are party places and fill up on the weekends. A deeper channel runs along behind the shallow area and it’s how we get to the island. The sandbar has some calm, clear, pools (and I took a dip) but the water behind the boat is running with the tide. A swim in the channel is nice too because it’s deep and at certain times, the water here can be very beautiful. This is a great place to take the kids, and everyone brings their dogs! We met up with some friends here a while ago.
We had a nice day and managed to keep cool between dips in the water and the wind from traveling. Luckily we get to go boating during the week so there are no crowds.
