{"id":259700,"date":"2024-03-12T17:52:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T22:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=259700"},"modified":"2024-03-12T18:01:43","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T23:01:43","slug":"made-some-new-friends-on-a-paddle-down-a-florida-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/03\/12\/made-some-new-friends-on-a-paddle-down-a-florida-creek\/","title":{"rendered":"Made some new friends on a paddle down a Florida creek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We drove down to spend March in Florida, near Venice &#8212; just south of Sarasota, on the Gulf side &#8212; so of course I brought my kayak, and when I had a free afternoon I took it down to Curry Creek, which runs behind the mobile home park where we are staying, and empties into the bay and from there into the gulf. It was a beautiful day for a paddle, so I took it slow and paddled about three or four kilometres &#8212; saw a few ibises, a couple of herons, some miscellaneous birds of various kinds, and lots of moss hanging from the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/img_20240308_190200_480530873080252497370.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-259703\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/img_20240308_190200_480530873080252497370.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/img_20240308_190200_480530873080252497370-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/img_20240308_190200_480530873080252497370-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/img_20240308_190200_480530873080252497370-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/img_20240308_190200_480530873080252497370-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1337409002282026683828704.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-259704\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1337409002282026683828704.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1337409002282026683828704-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1337409002282026683828704-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While I was paddling, I saw a man sitting on a bench on the bank of the creek and he was looking at something across the creek. &#8220;There he is,&#8221; he said, pointing at an alligator sunning himself on a sand bar &#8212; about eight or nine feet long probably. As I paddled by he submerged, so I only got a shot of his head poking up above the water. Further along I saw another one, but he was completely obscured except for his nose, and seemed to want to have nothing to do with me, which was fine with me \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1433546784390342782240917.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-259706\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1433546784390342782240917.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1433546784390342782240917-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_1433546784390342782240917-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"1080\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1920 \/ 1080;\" width=\"1920\" controls src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/20240308_142117.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The only downside to this whole trip is that it was such a beautiful day that I just kept on paddling for about two hours, despite a dull ache in my shoulder that had been there for a few days, and I haven&#8217;t been in a kayak for about six months. I thought maybe I could paddle it out, but this was a mistake &#8212; the following day I could barely move my shoulder without pain, and it was throbbing even without me moving it. So now I am on a rest, ice, warm, no exercise regimen for awhile I guess. But it was worth it! Almost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We drove down to spend March in Florida, near Venice &#8212; just south of Sarasota, on the Gulf side &#8212; so of course I brought my kayak, and when I had a free afternoon I took it down to Curry Creek, which runs behind the mobile home park where we are staying, and empties into &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/03\/12\/made-some-new-friends-on-a-paddle-down-a-florida-creek\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Made some new friends on a paddle down a Florida creek&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259700"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259710,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259700\/revisions\/259710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}