Sammy Creek

I wondered how long it would take to bring Sammy Creek back after this place was ravaged by Hurricane Irma in September 2017.  Not long at all and every time I drive by on South Sugarloaf I hope to see no cars parked at the entrance gate. 

There are picnic tables under shade and a small boat launch ramp so you can walk your kayak to the water's edge by the bridge and cast off into the strong currents of the creek.

It's a gravel pit with some flower beds and lots of light. I really like it here.

I usually get bored long after Rusty starts whining, staring at me wondering what I see in this small sliver of quiet space. I overexposed the cormorant taking off but I liked the mistake. Leaping Into The Void:

Coconut palms go into an altered state when viewed in black and white. I set the red filter and use the tungsten white balance to create the black sky and the sun shining on the fronds creates the contrast.

Ignore the dog staring at me and pouting. He'll be fine.

They bore holes into the coconut palm trunks to inject an antidote to lethal yellowing disease which tends to kill them. Yes I know it sounds  like a cartoon joke but the cure while expensive does work if you want ornamental coconut palms in your life.

Oh and the texture of the palm trunks reminds me of elephants. In black and white pictures.

I saw the occupants of a car with a northern licence plate hauling picnic apparatus toward the gate as Rusty and I were leaving. We got out just in time.

Light on water:

It looks like summer but feels like winter. A Florida winter of course with a light cool breeze and temperatures near 80 and no humidity (that I could feel). 

It felt like summer in that we were alone.

Red mangroves. The bubbles mark the tidal current flowing merrily out to sea. There are no fresh water creeks in the Keys so a creek is a saltwater passage between mangroves. Not a river.

I heard a rumbling noise so I in turn rumbled to my feet and stopped rubbing Rusty's stomach to snatch a photo. "Priorities," I told the dog who is notorious in my life for looking away whenever I take up the infernal device. I pointed the camera up the creek as I listened to the rumbling which had turned into a hull slapping sound as the boat came down the waterway.

There is something unappealing to me about being all bundled up on a  boat. I convinced my wife when we got married in 1994 that we wanted to honeymoon in Grenada, good idea, on a boat, unknown quantity. She took to it fortunately but I discovered rain at twelve degrees north in the Caribbean is just as cold and nasty as it is on California's foggy cold coastline. I like ambient heat on my boat.

Besides which driving a  center console is inherently boring to me.. It's like driving a car only at half the speed with no of the comfort. I am not holding a  majority position here I might add. They had fishing rods so I assume the plan was to stalk innocent fish and hook them to their death by suffocation in the bottom of the boat. Also not my cup of tea. I go fishing at Publix and Winn Dixie.

Rusty is quite partial to a can of tuna from time to time but raw fish would be survival food for him, on a par with iguana or rodents. I have this idea that in the even of a zombie apocalypse my survival tool is my dog. We would go feral together eating iguana and hiding in the bushes from the zombies. It would be great.

It would probably be ghastly but Rusty survived by his wits and I expect he could do it again. I prefer the genteel middle class life of wandering around, taking pictures and going home to tea and a nap. He seems to prefer it too.

It was a pleasant afternoon at Sammy Creek. We need to do it again when I get a day off sometime in the distant future.  Alongside photography Rusty thinks overtime is a  really bad idea. I can't say I disagree but I wonder how he will cope having me around all the damn time when I retire.