So we were supposed to be going out to Tom Owen's Island with Polly from ReefCI today ... but there's been a delay, so we'll do Tues-Sat this week instead of Mon-Fri. Means we have a free day today, so Polly's suggested a kayak trip into the jungle with her brother-in-law George.
We went down to the dock at Joe Taylor Creek - which is located as the creek empties into the ocean, so we jumped into the kayaks on the ocean side and paddled around to head inland.
George is a very charismatic Creole guy. He's really a walking encyclopaedia on the rainforest, the stars, and anything that belongs to nature pretty much.... not bad for someone who left school at 13. He spends days at a time off in the wild, enjoying the beauty and tranquillity at his own pace. As George told me, 'I have a home in town, but I'm not really at home until I return to the jungle'.
As we travelled up the creek, ducking under the bridge and around bends, the creek was lined by mangrove trees. Mainly there were red and white mangroves - the red ones are the ones whose roots grow out from the branches and head down to the floor of the water, the bigger ones we see; the white ones have roots/branches that grow upwards and are often seen as lots of little twigs coming up from the water.
Needless to say, the children are not big on rowing, so it is mainly us big people, one each per boat, who put in the muscle. This becomes more noticeable after the first hour! On the other hand, the boys are all fascinated by searching for crocodiles in the water - still none found.
Going deeper into the jungle areas, the mangroves disappear, hanging back with the salty ocean water. The sides of the creek are replaced by larger trees, palms and hardwoods. George points up to tell us that is where the large snakes rest, in the huge palm branches. Small red crabs run up and down the tree roots and branches on our left and right. Ben chooses to wage a war with them and spends much energy 'whacking' them into the water with a branch - poor little crabs, I'm not sure what they did to deserve such treatment!
Soon, the waterway narrows to where we are carefully navigating around rocks where otters have left their faecal traces and under fallen trees. The experience takes on an Indiana Jones quality. When we can no longer move forward, our way blocked entirely by fallen trees, we park the canoes and George leads us into the jungle along little 'paths' which seem somewhat adhoc. George shows Ben the community of smaller, fiddler crabs with their one bigger claw held as if always about to play a song. Ben enjoys holding these fellows and decides not to whack them.
Walking through the jungle paths, we see flatten grass where George figures the local deer, smaller than our North American versions, have been resting. A little further along we spot jaguar tracks. Everyone is excited as they look fresh and appear to be following little deer tracks. We follow the tracks along until they are lost near the creek.
I'm not sure what we would've done had we seen an actual jaguar, but we felt pretty safe with George there. He doesn't worry about the jaguars, says they don't tend to go for people and are usually trying to stay out of the way a bit.
Eventually, we made our way to a spot where we needed to cross the creek in order to return to our kayaks. George knew where there was a good spot, where a large tree lay across the creek. I was a little worried about how 5 year old Sam would cross, but he was the best of us all, racing his small body across, next to George. In the end, it was the bigger folks, Justin and I, who were the most wobbly making the crossing. But we did it (kids laughing in the background).
We returned home with aching arms (at least Justin and me!) and weary bodies. What a great adventure day!
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