Neptune, Don't Take My Kodachrome Away: Sink Creek

We rose early in anticipation of meeting up with Liz.  It wasn't too difficult to break camp...climb out of the nice clean sheets and waddle over to the hot shower.  Ah, such luxury.

Liz and Melissa, her videographer, arrive at 9.  As we set up for the interview, I comment that with all of the wind and rain the water has been cloudy and we haven't seen much of the expected sea life.

"When is the best time to visit the Big Bend?" I ask.  "March, but then in October you get the large flocks of birds migrating through. I guess we are still waiting for the weather because the only two blue sky days were when we left St. Marks and the next.  As Tim the motel owner said, we must have lost some bet.

Liz and Melissa video as we packed the boats.  We made arrangements for meeting up at the end of the day at Sink Creek Campground.  They filmed from 2 locations as we paddled away, waving our goodbyes to the good people of Steinhatchee.

The paddling was mostly uneventful.  The weather was favorable and we made good time.  Since we had only 10 miles to cover we took more time to notice things along the way.  About three miles from camp we saw an island with a sign, that as we neared was indeed a stop sign.  Since I thought it rather humorous to see a stop sign on a deserted bit of land almost big enough to call an island, I stopped to take a picture.  Not heeding the sign, we also nosed onto shore for a brief pee break.

We reached the lovely treed camp at about 2:30 and saw that Liz and Melissa had not arrived yet. We paddled the extra distance to the boat ramp they would be launching from. As we were saying our greetings, I reached for the camera to photograph their departure.  The camera was not in my PFD, nor was it in the boat. Was it a gift to Neptune or was it on the island? Rod and I decide to paddle back to see if se can find it. Liz, bless her heart, says "Fine. We'll go on to camp, start a fire and have your dinner ready for you when you get back."

We didn't find the camera. But we did have an enjoyable evening with Liz & Melissa upon our return.  We watched the sunset over the gulf while the full moon was rising in the east.  Then we sat around the campfire enjoying the leftovers of Liz's Christmas dinner.  Yum.

Distance:  10 + 6 bonus miles