Kayaking Trail Darts Among the Mangroves
Written by: By DAVID MOLYNEAUX
Publicized in:
Lee County Visitor Bureau
Publication Date: January 21, 2007
Kayaking
Trail Darts Among the Mangroves
Many
southwestern Florida water trails
follow a course charted by the Calusa Indians.
From a
distance, the mangroves seem impenetrable. But all along the
Gulf
Coast of southwest
Florida are inlets into the acres
of these tough tidal plants with exposed roots digging into the
water.
Once
inside the mangrove world, exploration by boat reveals a maze of hidden
waterways.
Mangroves, which trap the sands holding some coastal islands together,
also form a barrier to the hum of frenetic activity in the lives of
beach-seeking vacationers who fill
Florida each winter and
spring.
On a March morning last spring, as the beach traffic was building on busy
Summerlin Road, I drove to
quiet Bunche
Beach, slid a rented kayak into
Matanzas
Pass, paddled in the shallows at the
edge of Estero
Bay, then slipped into a skinny trail
of water in the mangroves, out of sight and earshot of all the human
hubbub.
Bunche Beach, between Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island, is one of many convenient launching places for
paddling on a portion of the grand, new Great Calusa Blueway. This is a nature
trail of water that runs nearly 100 miles along the coast and among the
mangroves. The trail meanders through Estero Bay from Bonita Springs north to Fort Myers, through Matlacha Pass between Cape Coral and Pine Island, and around Pine Island Sound to the barrier
islands of Sanibel, Captiva, North Captiva and Cayo
Costa.
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