Jean and I love to visit Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on a fairly regular basis and today we were blessed to be able to see an abundance of wildlife. As you can see above we were able to spot eagles as soon as we drove into the park, and later saw a huge variety of birds and as you will see below, we even got to see a bobcat crossing the road right as we were leaving.

You want to get to the Refuge as early in the morning as possible to get the best chance to see a variety of animals roaming and flying about. The best place to see the wildlife in the refuge is on the Black Point Wildlife Drive which is a 7 mile meandering one way trail through the more remote parts of the park. It will take approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour to complete the drive depending on what you see and how fast you drive. Most people (including Jean and I) creep along at about 5 miles an hour to make sure they don’t miss anything that might be hiding in the bushes or just under the swampy areas on either side of the narrow road.

The drive used to be free, but now requires a $5 per car entry fee. You can also pay $15 for an annual pass or use your America The Beautiful Pass that gets you in to all federally managed parks and recreation areas. We used our pass we purchased last August for our vacation out to Arizona last October.

Young Eagle (we spotted a total of 4 during this trip)

Roseate Spoonbills

Of all the times we have been up to the Merritt Island national Wildlife Refuge, this one was one of the best because of the variety and sheer numbers of birds and other creatures we we able to see. The highlight was probably seeing a bobcat cross the road right in front of us as we stopped a second time to see an eagle that had perched itself on a telephone pole right at the entrance to the refuge. I was taking pictures of the eagle and just happened to look away for a second and there was the bobcat. I have been in Florida for 44 years and have never seen a bobcat in the wild.

The pictures could have been much better, but I was so startled to see it and I thought it was a dog at first and didn’t really have time to focus the camera. I just pointed it and shot 3 pictures one after another. I now know how people taking pictures of Bigfoot feel when those photos always come out blurry. At least I know the Florida bobcat exists and you can see the pictures to prove it.

If you want to see the diverse animal life of the Indian River Lagoon and enjoy a leisurely morning or afternoon out on the water, then there’s no better recreational activity to engage in than a Florida kayaking tour in Cocoa Beach. Launched right from the parking lot of the Cocoa Beach Country Club, Cocoa Beach Kayaking owner Jessica Yeaman will take you on a guided tour of some of the winding shoreline off of the Minuteman Causeway.

Our tour began at 8:30 in the morning and lasted approximately 2.5 hours and we saw a a multitude of plant life including 3 different mangrove trees including the red ones that have a bean pod hanging from the branches, a variety of birds including osprey, water turkeys (also known as the snake bird), tarpon streaking through the water, mullet and the gentle giants of Florida river-ways, the Florida manatee. Being in Florida for more than 40 years I have seen plenty of manatee, but never like this. They are the most gentle, curious and mildly playful creatures you can imagine and they enjoyed gently pushing our kayaks around after we spotted them and just floated near their location. You can watch the manatees come right up to your boat and push it around, but don’t touch them because it is against the law.

Florida Manatee playing with our kayak

The area we kayaked in off of the Minuteman Causeway (a permanently unfinished causeway) is actually known as the Cocoa Beach Thousand Islands and if you don’t know your way around the area, it would be fairly easy to get lost as the mangroves and islands create a maze like path to follow. Therefore, we recommend you at least make your first journey with a guide and Cocoa Beach Kayaking is the perfect outfit to introduce you to the area.

Our guide Jessica (pictured to the left) is in the process of finishing up her degree in Oceanography and is a member of the SeaWorld Marine Mammal Rescue Team so she really knows her stuff and knows the natural surroundings of the Banana River and the Indian River Lagoon. Even though I’ve been living here for more than 40 years she informed us of natural Florida news that I didn’t know. One piece of information, that is vital to our manatee friends, was that most manatees are not killed by boat propellers as one would think, they are killed by boat strikes that break their ribs and puncture their lungs. That’s why you are supposed to idle your boat in manatee zones, so you don’t strike them.

If you want to join in on the fun and see a part of Florida up close and personal that you don’t normally see, take a trip with Cocoa Beach Kayaking. The cost is $30 per person and reservations must be made. Bring a snack with you if you want one, but everything else is supplied including hats, towels, sun block, bottled water and sunglasses if you need them. It is worth the price of admission just to watch your guide Jessica pat the water and call and talk to the manatees just like they were little puppies. Trust me, you will have a great time.

You can visit their website above by clicking the link above or call (321) 784-4545 to get more information or to make reservations.

Osprey seen while kayaking the Cocoa Beach Thousand Islands

While many vacation rentals you will find in more touristy places such as Gatlinburg or one of our favorite spots, Grayton Beach, have quaint little names, this one is just known as Luxury Beachfront House and is directly on the beach with 80 ft of property line looking out over the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. This place is huge and comprises 4,800 square feet of living space for its 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. It can sleep up to 16 people (which may be good for a family reunion or retreat of some kind) and you can rent the lower lever, the upper level or the entire home if you like.

Some of the amenities include a double sided wood burning fireplace with the firewood provided, a beautiful gourmet kitchen on the upper level, beach chairs and beach towels, a video game console with a library of games included, wireless internet access, a security system, an electric grill, a movie and video library, your own private boardwalk out to the beach, a telescope for spotting ships on the high seas and looking at the stars at night, hi-definition TVs and luxurious furnishings throughout the home.

Now for the rates to stay in this beautiful home. They range from $275 to $675 per night or $1,400 per week to $3,300 per week depending on the time of year and whether you want the upper level, lower level or the entire home. The cheapest rates are in the time period from Apr 2, 2011 to May 28, 2011 and from Aug 14, 2011 to Dec 24, 2011. There are 3 and 4 night minimum stays depending on which parts of the home you want to rent out. Renting for a week is the best deal as you almost get 2 nights free versus the individual night rate.

Maybe you could stay right in your own town the next time you want to have a family reunion or just want to get away from it all. Check out the more than 50 pictures of this luxurious home and get more details if you are interested. It’s worth just checking out the photos.

What’s the first thing you think of when someone mentions Florida attractions? Would it be Disney World or Sea World? What about the Kennedy Space Center? Or maybe you think of South Beach in Miami or the downtown areas of Orlando or Tampa? How many of you think of the natural side of Florida, getting out of the concrete jungle and what was here before all the man made attractions sprang up? If you love the real Florida as much as my wife and I do, then Forever Florida is an attraction you do not want to miss.

Located outside of St Cloud FL and near Holopaw, Forever Florida and the Crescent J ranch comprise 4,700 acres of the most natural Florida you will probably find in the entire state with the exception of maybe the Everglades. What we don’t see much of in our state any longer is native Florida animals, plants and entire ecosystems. With the advent of ever encroaching civilization, we lose the original, real Florida. Fortunately, Forever Florida has preserved the original, “just as nature intended.”

There are many ways you can experience the natural wilderness of one of the most “real” Florida attractions around. For those that want a leisurely sight seeing trip around the eco ranch and wildlife conservation area, you can take the Coach Safari and ride through 9 different Florida ecosystems on one of their elevated swamp coaches. You may get lucky and see some of the multitude of wildlife such as black bears, deer, more than 200 species of birds like the red shoulder hawk pictured above, and of course alligators and more. You will also get to see native Florida Cracker cattle and Cracker horses as the ranch boasts the largest herds of registered Cracker horses and cattle in the world.

Other ways to experience the eco wilderness and ranch include by horse back, and by the fun Zipline Safari where you soar up to 25 mph through the treetops at 55′ above the ground in some spots. Does that sound like fun? Watch for a future post on the Zipline adventure coming soon. There is also a 2 day horseback safari you can take to enjoy even more of the natural Florida wilderness on an overnight adventure. And last but not least, you can also camp here as well. There are areas for Boy Scouts, large groups and families or couples. You can also send your kids to summer camp for a week at Camp Illahaw where they will learn all about the real Florida and get to participate in a horseback riding and camping adventure they will remember for years.

The ranch also features a store with native Florida crafts and gifts and a restaurant where you can get something to eat after an enjoyable eco-safari. The restaurant also features Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other special occasion dinners at reasonable prices. You can check out their Festival Days page for more info on special restaurant events.

The ranch is open for safaris that run 7 days a week and the visitor’s center and restaurant building is open at 9:00 am every day. Have a look at their pricing and reservations page for scheduled departure times, rates and details. Reservations are required for all safari adventures. It is about 37 miles or a 45 minute drive from the intersection of Highway 192 and I-95. See their website for map and directions.

Don’t just hit the mouse house when you come to the Sunshine State, get out in the wilderness and experience what the old, original Florida was like in all of its natural beauty. Make plans to visit Forever Florida as soon as you can.

Many thanks goes out to William Crotts Photography for the pictures of Forever Florida wildlife. Enjoy some more below to see what you’re missing:

According to the study, survey, high school science project, whatever you want to call it (how about complete rubbish), 9.1% of you reading this post claim you drink heavily in some mysterious survey. Anyone reading this take a drinking survey lately?

I call it a mysterious survey because Business Week fails, quite miserably, to give even the slightest insight as to how the survey was taken, what the questions were, who was asked such questions and who administered said survey. I mean really, were the participants offered free booze for life? Did the researchers do an exit poll with customers leaving AB Sleaze on Babcock St in Palm Bay? Come on Business Week, a little more criteria spilled out to to the masses might give your survey a slight bit of credibility.

You can view the top 10 booziest cities here and see that there is no more data than 10 pictures, the names of the cities winning the dubious honor and the percentage of “heavy drinkers” in each city. It is interesting to note that no college towns, no national sports team cities and not even Daytona Beach for crying out loud ended up in the top 10. Shouldn’t Daytona at least get an honorable mention for the solid month of spring break, bike week booze-flowing-in-the-streets revelry? There’s probably more fire water consumed in Daytona Beach that month than in all top 10 cities combined for the year.

Oh, maybe the survey was actually taken in Daytona during Margarita Month and participants were asked where they were from. Now the picture is getting clearer, apparently Palm Bay and Melbourne residents are sneaking off to spring break late in March to party.

The irony in all this is that located in the panel right next to the pictures of the top 10 cities is this bit of self promotion: “U.S. News’s “Best” delivers recognized, authoritative information and clear, objective rankings that help readers plan for their life and ultimately, make the most of it.” Really? Ten stock photos with the names of 10 cities equates to “authoritative information and clear, objective rankings” that will help us pickled citizens of Palm Bay make the most of our lives?

Business Week just probably wanted to stir up things a bit and Melbourne Palm Bay was randomly selected and pulled out of the hat second. Honestly, the whole thing sounds like pure baloney to me.

The zoo now features 4 different themed lands that include Expedition Africa, La Selva (South America), Australia & Asia, Wild Florida (since that’s where we live) and an additional petting area called Paws On Play. We took a very low intensity stroll through only 2 lands this visit and enjoyed Expedition Africa, Australia / Asia and just the alligator section of Wild Florida. Because we purchased an annual pass we decided we would just have a short visit of only about 2 hours.

The exhibit we enjoyed the most was Africa where you can see cheetahs (the fastest land animal in the world), white rhinoceros, dromedary camel, giraffes and much more. My wife had been taking all week about going to the zoo and hopefully getting to see a giraffe. Well, she got her wish and more when we went to the giraffe feeding and observation platform and one beautiful specimen came right up to the platform to be fed. At first it came to a group of people and then gracefully wandered over to where my wife was all by herself. To her surprise there was a cracker that you purchase to feed the animals sitting right next to her. The giraffe can right up to her and let her feed it and pet it.

Now, if you have never had the experience of seeing a giraffe up close, it really is quite amazing. These exquisite creatures are some 17 feet tall and weigh in at 2,000 pounds or more and they move that huge mass in the most graceful manner you can imagine. It is as if you are watching ballet to see the giraffe move.

It costs $13.50 per adult for admission to the Brevard Zoo, but you can get discounts by buying annual passes for families or couples. We got an internet special of 2 annual passes (They’re called a membership) for 2 adults, 2 additional one day guest passes, 2 passes for the train and unlimited kayaking for only $79. The memberships run for 1 year from the time of purchase. It is well worth the price if you plan on going a few times because we took one additional person with us on our latest visit and the total would have been $40, half of what the price of the membership was.

The Brevard Zoo is located in the Viera section of Melbourne at 8225 North Wickham Road, Melbourne, FL and is opened daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Make sure you stick around and see the giraffe.

Today the waves from Hurricane Earl, which got within 372 statute miles of Palm Bay Florida, were nearly twice the size as reported yesterday. Hitting the beach at around 7:15 this morning the waves were much less choppy and about 6 feet with outside sets around 7 to 8 feet. It was a bit hard to tell just how big the surf was because almost no one was out and the beach was nearly deserted.

There are some surf reports of places in Satellite Beach seeing up to 15′ faces, but I didn’t drive up there to check it out. I was pretty surprised to see that there was hardly anyone out taking advantage of the great waves this morning since there was very little chop and a nice offshore wind producing a little back spray early this morning. I’m sure that will change later in the day. There were plenty of people standing on the boardwalk watching the big waves come in, but there was hardly anyone out surfing.

Waiting To Hit The Surf

The shore break and frequency of sets coming in was pretty intense, so there may be a few people who were having trouble getting through the foam and breaking waves to the outside.

I took 188 pictures of the waves with a cheap point a shoot digital camera and the sun was almost directly in front of me so most of the pics are pretty washed out, but I was able to tweak them a bit in Photoshop. Only a few are good enough to publish so check them out below. Of course there’s the obligatory photo with a bird scurrying around on the beach, but that’s just the nature of what’s usually happening on a deserted shoreline.

Enjoy the pics.

Okay, the first picture above isn’t that of Hurricane Earl waves, that’s because they aren’t all that spectacular as of September 1 at 8:00 in the morning. But when I was over in Indialantic beach this morning checking out the surf, the seagulls were putting on a pretty good show floating in the brisk wind just above the boardwalk.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Earl is out in the Atlantic ocean around 611 statute miles from my location as I write this page and is churning up waves of about 3 to 4 feet as you can see below.

Right now the storm is producing 125 mph sustained winds and is forecast to strengthen a little to 135 mph winds by tomorrow. Tomorrow Sept 2nd should be much better conditions for bigger waves when Earl moves twice as close to us as it is now and strengthens a bit. Originally Earl was forecast to reach a strong category 5 status with winds of 160 miles per hour, but the latest forecasts only put top wind speeds up to 135 mph which just breaks into the category 5 status by 1 mph.

While we will get to enjoy the big waves here in Florida for the next couple of days, people living on the outer banks of North Carolina are evacuating at this moment.

You can track the progress of Hurricane Earl here at the Weather Underground or at the National Hurricane Center.

I’ll probably stop by the beach again, and Java Surf for a coffee, tomorrow so, check back for more pictures of the surf kicked up by Hurricane Earl. Hopefully the waves will be a bit bigger and more fun for all you surf rats. My surfing days are pretty much over.

Bioluminescence is the technical name for what you see when you see fireflies light up at night and there are many creatures capable of producing this effect. Some of those creatures are microscopic organisms that live in the waters of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and when you paddle through these waters in certain locations the water lights up with an eerie green glow. I was expecting to see a few little glimmers of this effect but, was completely stunned by what I saw. It was like something out of a fantasy type Lord Of The Rings movie.

We paddled around at the beginning of the tour when it was still a little light and looked for manatees and as it started to get darker our guide took us through a narrow tree and shrub lined area and we didn’t start to see anything yet and I was thinking this wasn’t going to be any big deal. We then paddled to a more open cove and as we were approaching the cove in the open water, the bioluminescent effect started happening all of a sudden and it was pretty freaky at first.

When you move your paddles through the water the water actually lights up and you can also see the effect happen as the kayaks around you cut through the water. Also, when you disturb mullet and other fish in shallow areas, you can see the water light up as they swim through it. One thing I learned about disturbing mullet at night when they are sleeping, they jump, hundreds of them, and some end up in your kayak. If you’ve ever seen mullet jump and though, ‘oh, look at the fish,’ it’s a totally different experience when you kayak over top of them at night. It literally starts raining mullet. We ended up with 2 mullet jumping into our boat and it was quite startling to my wife. I was also hit by 3 or 4 mullet in the shoulder, back and head. When I say they jump, I mean, they jump.

There is only a short window of opportunity to see this phenomenon each year in the Mosquito Lagoon area. The tours run in July, August, September and October and the best time to go is either 5 days before or 5 days after a new moon, so you have the least amount of light in the sky. The darker it is, the better you will experience the full effect.

You can bring a camera to take pictures of the launch area and your friends if you bring someone along, but don’t expect to photograph the bioluminescent effect because it is nearly impossible to do so. Because of the lighting conditions and the short time the effect lasts as you move through the water, only a very few pictures of this phenomenon exist in the entire world. Even if you could get a picture of the effect, nothing beats seeing it in real life on the kayak tour.

The tour lasts for between 2 to 2.5 hours and costs $32 for an adult. This is really one of the more amazing natural phenomenon you don’t want to miss if you live in Florida or if you are vacationing here. Believe me, you will definitely be telling your friends about this adventure.

What’s the Palm Bay Weather like today? All you have to do is check the statistics below. Included is the current temperature, the weekend forecast for Palm Bay so you can plan your outdoor activities, the 10 day Palm Bay forecast and more. The weather information is direct from the Weather.com so you know it’s accurate.

You know how the weather here in Florida can get. We have pretty mild winters and very nice fall and spring weather, but it gets miserable here in the summer. The humidity is stifling and it’s sometimes more than I can take. I’ve been living here in Florida for 43 years and I’m still not used to the humidity here in the summer.

Anyway, check the weather links below for your Palm Bay weather and tgry to stay cool in the summer Florida sun.

Home For Sale In Palm Bay Florida
Check out this beautiful new home for sale in Palm Bay Florida. It is convenient to shopping, I-95 and has some great amenities.

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