Monday, which for us was Kayak Tour day!
They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it's a little-known fact that the rest of that expression goes, "especially right before a kayak tour". Judy went a little gung-ho on her omelet, with tomatoes and who-knows-what-else. Mine just had some cheese, I do believe.
I couldn't resist a shot of the Boardwalk on our way over to the Activities Window.
Here's the Activities window, on the ground floor of the building at the pool that houses everything else, such as the Mercantile, Tide Me Over, and Community Hall which are upstairs; and the bike rentals are just beyond that green gate at the left of the picture. And look at that sign in the window. I didn't read it when we were there because it didn't pertain to me, but it answers a question I've had on this thread. It's advertising that a Kids-Night-In and a Teens-Night-In is that night (Monday) from 6-9pm.
We joined up with a few other people who would be going on the kayak tour with us that day, and met our guide, Greg. He walked us to the other end of the resort, near the marina, where we'd be setting out. Before we got going, he handed out everyone's life jackets and talked to us about proper paddle and steering techniques. Most of their kayaks were singles, but they had a few doubles, which Greg called "divorce boats". Judy and I had one of those, but (spoiler alert!) we were able to hold our marriage together despite the bad reputation of this particular watercraft.
I told Judy that the first thing we had to do was take a selfie, and since she was in the front, it was up to her. It wasn't as easy as you'd think – this was our waterproof camera, not a cell phone, so there was no way to see what picture you were getting until after you took it. This picture was our second attempt.
Judy's leaning back in that picture, partly to take the shot, but also because the back support in those kayaks was terrible. We felt like we were constantly leaning back and we struggled to sit up straight. I don't know what to do to remedy it. Maybe I'd take a towel or something to try to shove in behind my back in order to get more into a sitting up position.
I took a shot back toward the resort as we waited for others to get their boats underway. Greg was very patient with everyone and encouraged us to paddle around and try to get used to how to maneuver the kayaks.
Once everyone got underway, we met at a buoy where the marina met the marsh and got started paddling north, along the resort. Here's a shot as we approached the pier. (I apologize, it looks like all of these pictures have a smudge on the center of the lens that I didn't realize was there at the time.)
A little further up, at the north end of the resort. The Lodge is behind the trees in the center of the picture. The Boardwalk (where we'd walked earlier in the morning) runs along the buildings at the right side of the picture. The rogue resort spoiling my balcony view is along the left side of the picture.
We turned left and started heading through some grassy spots. Greg said that the tide was going out and if it had been low tide, we wouldn't have been able to get through here. In fact, Hilton Head has one of the biggest variations in tides on the east coast. It rises and falls about 7 feet; potentially up to 10 feet if it's a new or full moon.
That's Greg ahead of us.
Those jagged things sticking up from the water in the center of the picture are oyster beds. I'll have some better pictures of them further on.
I think this bird is a great egret. But to cover my bases, I can report that I made a note that on the tour we saw great egret, snowy egret, great blue heron, pelican, and dolphins. I'm pretty sure it's
not a dolphin.
We emerged from the grasses into a more open area and saw some dolphins surface across the other side. Like the overachievers that we are, Judy and I paddled across. Here, we're looking back toward the rest of our group. You can also see the resort in the distance, beyond the grasses.
Instead of surfacing where we'd paddled to, they came up closer to our tour group. We paddled back and kept looking. I think this picture is one of those shots where they came up and went back down before I could click the shutter button on the camera. But it was really a thrill to see them.
We eventually gave up on seeing more of the dolphins and started paddling south. Although Greg said that you never know, sometimes they'll surface right amongst the kayaks. In fact, one of the dolphins they sometimes see, they've named "Sneaky" (if I'm remembering correctly) because it likes to do that. There's also another one they call "Notch" because he's missing a chunk of dorsal fin from a fight.
Here are a couple of better shots of exposed oyster beds.
Actually, they were amazing to see because they were spitting! They're filter feeders. They suck in water, filter it, and spit it back out. You could see water randomly, here and there, being spit up an inch or two. I was kicking myself later that I didn't think to take video of them because it was pretty darned cool.
This is a great blue heron with some high-priced real estate in the distance behind him.
The same guy from a different angle. He didn't mind posing for us.
Greg taught us a lot about the nature of the marsh. For example, he mentioned that a lot of the big sharks in the ocean get there start here. He doesn't always like to say that when there are little kids on the tour, as they get scared by that fact.
But...one of the best pieces of information he gave us was that Publix has the best fried chicken on the island. I definitely made a mental note of that.
Some of the other people in our group in the "divorce boats" were having fun teasing each other about who was, and who was not, expending effort in paddling. Always fun to watch some of those interactions!
We eventually turned around and started heading back north toward the resort. At one point while we traveled along, a motorboat came out of the marina and was heading straight for a guy in our tour group who was a little too far from the shore and right in the path of the boat. This poor guy had struggled the whole time to maneuver his kayak, and with the boat bearing down on him he just stopped, dead in the water so to speak, and resorted to
pointing that the boat should go around him! I'm sorry, but as I watched this unfold all I could think of was a famous scene of Judge Smails (Ted Knight) in "Caddyshack". (For those who might not know, this is a picture from "Caddyshack", not my kayak tour!)
Somehow, at Greg's urging, he was able to get his kayak over with the rest of us and the motorboat passed without incident. Not as funny an outcome as occurred in "Caddyshack", but I'm sure it's what Greg and the kayak-guy preferred.
Crisis averted, we neared the resort. The marina is on the right; you can see the tops of the boats peeking over the grassy areas. The boat launch area we were set off is kind of in the middle of the trees, which are hiding the Disney resort buildings.
Here, we're getting closer and it's easier to see the boat launch area.
I have no idea what kind of bird this was, at Shelter Cove across the marina from Disney. But yeah, we got a picture of it.
Coming in for a landing.
We thanked Greg for a great tour and walked back to our suite.
I couldn't resist getting a picture of Shadow's doghouse back at the Lodge, before we caught the elevator up to our floor. Pretty nice oriental rug Shadow's got there.
To sum up, I'd definitely recommend the kayak tour. To first-time visitors at least. After that, if you want to go back out and cruise around, you could probably hit up one of the rental companies and go out on your own.
Just stay out of the shipping lanes.
Up next: Dodging the raindrops
Link to next chapter
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