Monday 12th December – Sebastian Inlet State Park

As soon as I woke, the window shutters were up to check out the scenery.  The bad weather from last night was a distant memory and there were the dolphins breaching the surface in front of me.  I could get used to staying where I can watch dolphins from my bed!

Grey heron and Egret fighting for fishing territory... 

However, the itching welts all over my body were a reminder that we did not have enough bug spray to fend off the local super-bugs so an essential job of the day was stocking up on our supplies of Deet.  We took our bikes out for a tour of the campsite and potential kayak launching sites.  The staff at the office told us we could purchase bug spray from the store over the bridge so we headed that way.  Suddenly, there was one, no TWO of my favourite birds in the world – Ospreys!  Perched on the posts of the bridge literally metres in front of me.  The Zorro of the skies, with a black ‘bandana’ around the eyes.  Of course, I hadn’t bothered bringing my camera to anything as mundane as going to buy bug spray which was frustrating!  I will add some pictures of other ospreys we’ve seen but of course they are much further away from me and probably blurry!  This large bridge which separates the rough waters of the Atlantic from the calmer waters of the inlet was a perfect position for the osprey to view their domain and watch for shoals of fish coming into the inlet.  It is probably the closest I will ever get to this amazing wild bird.  We continued over to the far side of the inlet and purchased the last available can of 40% deet spray.  There was a viewing platform onto the Atlantic Ocean where we saw some surfers making the most of the waves.  Bizarre that there is surf on this side off the land and only two minutes away where we are camped the water is like a millpond.

Osprey 

Back at the RV we had to move sites today as previously mentioned so between times we drove Harvey to a very protected and shallow inlet to take the kayak out. This was probably the closest we are going to get to dolphins in our boat!  Sadly the video files are all too large to add to this blog. There was hardly any current so it took very little effort to float around the bay heading towards any major ripples in the surface to try to get as close to the wildlife as possible.
The bird life was also plentiful – heron, cormorants, pelicans and seagulls.  Then as we were getting out one of my faves, you guessed it, an Osprey flew around us and perched above our heads (right).  This had been the easiest wildlife watching so far with fantastic results.

After we cleaned the boat off we returned to the campsite and our new plot, 7 doors down from last night’s plot!  We parked up next to our new neighbours.  I’d noticed their rig last night – partly because they had a similar motorhome to us, but also because they were well settled and festooned with festive decorations all over their plot.  They had a tree, they had fairy lights, they had frickin’ laser beams shining out into the darkness.  They meant business.  They were also two of the friendliest people you could hope to meet, Matt and Maria from Jupiter (not the planet) which is a couple of hours further down the coast.  As we got chatting they explained that Sebastian inlet is their favourite place and invited us on a sunset booze cruise on their golf cart, Elvira!  What an invitation!  As soon as we were settled in and showered from our boating exploits we covered ourselves in as much bug spray as feasibly possible, grabbed a couple of beers and jumped onto the back of Elvira:

This was a nightly excursion for Matt and Maria and they knew exactly where to go to get the best views of the sunset, including what I will now evermore refer to as the ‘Osprey Bridge’.  On our return the dolphins had turned up right by our two rigs so again I watched until there wasn’t enough light to reflect into my eyeballs anymore.

Sunset across the protected calm waters of the inlet 

From the osprey bridge looking towards the Atlantic Ocean

The view from the picnic table outside our RV

We’d taken steaks out of the freezer to enjoy a waterside BBQ (yes, another BBQ!) but after eating we re-joined Matt and Maria in their festive paradise and sat up talking for a few hours.  They invited us out on their boat in the morning and, even though we had to move on the next day, we were not in any rush to leave and didn’t have to check out until 1pm so jumped at the chance.  How lucky it was that we ended up moving campsites?!