Thursday October 29th 2020

It was another great weather day. The high humidity and high eighties temperature is kept in check by the comforting sea breeze. During the afternoon a stray dark cloud passes to dump a couple of teaspoons of rain on things.

I was surprised to find the sky empty of Kite Boarders this morning. Apparently the last few days have been a club event or meet of some kind. Each of the days I’ve been here more than a dozen kites were out on the water or staging on the ground in the day use area. Today there weren’t any kite boarder just a few kayaks. I’m going to miss the entertainment.

After a trip into Marathon in search of interesting outdoor activities, I settled for a hike back at the state park on the Curry Hammock Nature Trail. The trail is actually located a mile away from the campground on the opposite side of the Overseas highway. It is on the bay side.

While I enjoyed the hike, I found the trail more challenging than interesting. It is a narrow trail with very uneven walking surfaces. There are a few flooded and muddy areas, but most of the trail is on exposed ancient seabed and tree roots. My eyes had to be down watching the ground most of the way along the trail. That presents two problems. You need to be aware of low hanging branches and I never saw any of the birds I scared out of the trees along the trail. I did manage to see a snake and a lizard. A few louder creatures moving in the brush were completely hidden from view.

The spur trail to the bay side overlook was very wet. The last twenty or so feet it was necessary to hop from rock to rock. At the end the view was expansive, but unexciting. It was a view of lots of blue water, an island and a boat. Looking down into the water there were a couple of colorful little fish. They were much more entertaining than anything else on the trail.

The entire mile and a half loop with fish watching time took a little over an hour. I was dripping in sweat when I got back to the car. Other than a couple of people fishing near the beginning of the trail, I didn’t see anyone on the trail.