Exploring the Florida Bay

We had ideal conditions while kayaking around Murray Island in Everglades National Park. This is a definite "must revisit" on the my list.

Never Gets Old

Another pretty sunset.

Web-light

Lovely light through a golden silk spider web.

Tortoises worshiping the Sun

They are soaking it up!

Peanut Island

Great day to play in the water, a bit chilly, but wonderfully sunny. The manatees were active. it was quite touching to hear the lifeguards attempting to protect the manatees from all the noise the observers were making.

Great Beans

I do love walking the beach. Beachcombing for drift seeds is just about the top of my list for "relaxing activities".

The big, squarish, netted, one is a Box Fruit, Barringtonia asiatica seabean.com

This one is large by comparison to those that I have found before. They can be quite brittle and smell of fouling critters that have attached during the drift. This one had a number of goose-neck barnacles Lepas anserifera (?)  attached. I consider Box Fruit a special prize when beachcombing since I rarely find more than 5 or so a year.

The dark maroon heart-shaped seed is (easy one) a Sea Heart Entada gigas www.seabean.com 

This one is particularly "hearty" and it to has fouling critters attached, although these are not stinkers, just decorative.

Last but in no way least is the beautiful red-butterscotch colored mystery. This may be a macuna or dioclea, it is a undetermined find. Either way it is one of the rarest and a big favorite for me. For now its my butterscotch beauty with sea purse tendencies.