Downtown

It's going to be another 90 degree day, although later there is a chance of thunderstorms.  It's a tough day to do a long trip when it is 90 degrees and you're sitting on a big solar mirror.  

I put-in at my town's small harbor.  It's quite packed with parked pleasure boats at this time of year.  It makes me wonder where so many boats can be stored during the winter when they are hauled out.  I'm in the water just after seven, and just after high tide, and no one else is driving their boats, yet.

I head out to the mouth of the harbor and then up into Gulf Pond.  The pond doesn't have the bird life or diversity of the Wheeler Marsh, but their are a few pairs of nesting Osprey and always some Egrets that come in to feed.  If I was them, I would prefer the Wheeler as well, being larger and providing more cover and distance from predators.  The pond is split in two by a long cause way and bridge with the upper half narrower with a wider buffer of spartina marsh.  Then, under a low road bridge and through the old railroad bridge.  The rail bridge is probably a 19th century relic from a time when people didn't think twice about constricting water flow.  Narrow as it is, bad timing with the tide can keep you stuck on one side or the other for a couple hours. It also turns into a pile of jagged boulders at low tide.

The section immediately above the rail bridge is the Indian River.  While none of this trip is particularly wild, this is the best of it with a wide buffer of spartina and few houses in sight.  It's a good place to spot Herons and Egrets and I spotted my first two Bitterns in here.  

Far enough, long enough, I turn back.