Tag: daughter

A boating trip south to the lagoon brought us to an island we had all to ourselves. My daughter came for a visit in November and we took a boat ride, with my son, to explore the islands.

If you Google Florida’s spoil islands, the links that come up have mostly to do with the islands made further south. Those islands have camping and are kept up for visitor. We were in the northern tip of the lagoon. In general the “spoil” islands were mostly manmade by dredging the ICW canal so large ships could pass through. The coquina rock chunks were piled up to create islands which are now filled with palm trees and vegetation. This is my understanding.

This area is very shallow, and you can only access these islands with a boat that has a low draft. We are not used to dealing with “rocks” and had to be careful as we approached the shore. These coquina rocks are made up of shells and sediment that are all tightly compacted.

A Whelk Unearthed

On the rocky beach side of this island I came across the pointed end of this whelk sticking up out of the sand. When I pulled, the smooth, worn, knobbed whelk shell came up.

Beach Erosion, From Hurricane Ian?

Hurricane Ian passed over this area the end of September (2022) and I am guessing that the erosion seen here was due to that storm. Hurricane Nicole didn’t come until November 10th, which was only a few days after this trip. Nicole was worse for the coast, so I’m sure more of this island beach was washed away. Hope we can go back soon. The wind and waves from hurricanes can wash up – or wash away to expose – some interesting things. In Daytona Beach Shores they are excavating a shipwreck that has appeared along the beach, and is believed to be from the 1800s.

Windy days have kept us off the water – that, and the fact that it’s just a busy time of year. I took a short video for the full effect of being on this beach.

Yes, many of the shells had hermit crabs inside, but the big whelks did not.

The water was still quite warm – around 78 degrees – and my daughter took a swim and did some snorkeling. I saw stingrays hiding in that grass and it kept me on dry land!

We spent a few hours walking around the beach area, then boated to another island and headed home. hadn’t seen my daughter in nearly two years, so it was a really nice week with her. The day she arrived we (along with my son) headed to Flagler Ave. for an evening beach walk. Every day was spent on or in the water!

I’ll be writing more about the shells we found here on my next post.

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