We shifted to a different camp site, yes, it's only a difference of a couple of yards, but we moved to one that is sheltered by the trees and vegetation. It became quite windy during the night and with our all mesh tent, it was a little chilly to have a constant breeze blowing over us.
The previous tenant of the site gifted us with several gallons of fresh water they did not want to carry back to the mainland. We soon learned, this is what campers here do, gift extra supplies to the campers who remain after you. Most campers just stay for one night, we would become the veterans as each night we stayed new people came and went. We were later gifted with more water and shared food and drink with our neighbors.
Kayaking to Loggerhead Key
We loaded up the tandem kayak and set out for the hour long paddle to Loggerhead Key about 12:30. It's a 3.6 mile journey; I brought my gps along to record our travels around the islands. This is where the light house was located and where two volunteers and 15 Cubans were there to greet us. The paddle was challenging but so worth it. There was no wind what so ever which had there been any, we would not have dared to make the pass across. Even in clear calm weather, there was some chop, and we did start to get a little green as we neared the island "Just 500 more yards!" "You said that 500 yards ago!"
We made land fall on the far end of the island and sat for awhile, took some Dramamine and I walked and Mark paddled the kayak further up the island. We stopped and greeted one of the volunteers; their little house had an array of solar panels to provide them with power. She directed us to "Little Africa" the coral reef head that was the reason for our paddle over, an unspoiled pristine coral head that when viewed from up in the light house was in the shape of the continent of Africa, hence the name.
I was still quite green and stayed on land while Mark went out to explore Little Africa. The coral spread all the way to the shore, it involved careful and tricky maneuvering to walk over the slick surface of coral to get into open water. While Mark was in the water I was able to observe quite a bit of wildlife through the crystal clear water just from shore. I eventually joined Mark out in the water and hand in hand we swam together over the coral.
The barracuda were a little spooky. Here are fish nearly as long or longer than I am, circling and following us around with their snarling unhappy expressions on their tooth filled mouths. They were no threat to us, but spooky none the less, as they would not budge. We had to swim around them if we wanted to get by.
We needed to start our return paddle, it takes and hour and a half on the return trip. We popped a couple of precautionary Dramamine and set off, we were both pretty beat but were rewarded with some gems on the trip: two turtle sightings coming up for air very close to our kayak, Mark was fishing on the way back and caught a barracuda and a yellow tailed snapper (which we let loose, but would have made a nice dinner with the lemons and onion we had brought), we paddled directly over quite a commotion of tarpin (?) that had swarmed around a school of smaller fish for a feeding frenzy� fish were flying out of the water and splashing and sea birds were circling over head and diving in for a catch as well, it was exciting to be in the middle of this in our small boat.
We made land fall right at sunset and beautiful and fitting end to our days' adventure.