New Friends and points of interest
Trip Start
Nov 19, 2007
1
143
165
Trip End
Ongoing
Flagler Beach,
Florida,
United States
Monday, June 29, 2009
June 24th
Craig's home, or one of his homes is in Palm Coast, about 8 miles north of Flagler Beach. His backyard is a canal leading to the Halifax River Intra Coastal Waterway. We let the boat down into the canal and off we went. Slowly meandering through the canals as Craig showed us all the beauty one misses by only driving the roads. Then into the River and sped up. We passed virtual mansions and fishing shacks within minutes of each other. People fishing and hanging out as the sun began to set. The River has estuaries and islands and outlets both north and south of Flagler Beach that take you out to the Atlantic. We stayed in the river and watched dolphins follow us, osprey catching fish and Eagles soaring and nesting above.
Craig Killman and Andy
Magnificent nature!! It is amazing how different this area feels when experienceing it from the River. It is more like Bayou or low country. The smells and richness of the raw beauty teaming with wildlife.I opened up our goodies hoping Craig had adventurous taste in foods. He liked it all!! Especially enjoying the Chicken Sausage rounds dipped in horseradish sauce!! Much to his credit he went ahead and tried my curried tofu salad that my friend Claudia turned me onto years ago. Now Craig is asking for the recipe! Claudia made it up to mimic a natural foods deli and I mimicked hers, so by now....who knows what the real recipe is??
We got back to Craig's dock as the sun was setting so Craig and Andy set out some poles off the dock while I took a leisurely and cooling swim in his pool. Then....bam! Craig caught a fish! A big one at that!! We had no idea what kind it was so we all decided to let him go. Turned out to be a Red Fish or Red Drum. Excellent eating and was surely within the slot of a keeper!! The pix did not come out well as everything was moving but I am putting them in so you can see the grand size of this guy!! We could have had some supper!!! Oh well....next time. Good job Craig!
June 29th
I invited Andy to drive us to Marine Land where there is a Dolphin Resource Center. The pix show it best as we arrived just in time to watch a group of 8 people get in the water with the Dolphins after a training period and a suiting up. Quite a show as the people gave love and care and fish after asking the Dolphins to jump and clap and sing and dance. All fantastic! It seems sad at first to see such magnificent animals cooped up while only feet away in the surf are their brothers swimming free. but...as we watched and realized that these dolphins had been bred in captivity and how much loving and playful attention they received everyday we began to see the higher good this communication and education serves the thousands of folks who come here. Maybe some of these children will grow up to be environmentalists because of this experience.
Sometimes during our stay here in Flagler Beach we have gone back down to Ormond Beach and stayed at Tomoka State Park. It is wonderful there and very different than Gamble Rogers. I have included some pictures of a surprising sculpture I ran into one morning while biking before Andy awoke. It is a monument to the Seminole Indians who lived on the Tomoka Basin where the two rivers meet at the point. Very magical place. Very sad and magical. The Seminoles gave it their all to protect what was rightfully theirs and lost everything in doing so.
This area is filled with history and nature and magic. There is adventure and a sense of living a little on the edge as it really does get hit with hurricanes!! If we end up living in Florida I guess we will always have Crazy Fish to take us out of town when a hurricane is coming our way
