Dog Island

Dog Island, Florida

Dog Island is a paradox. Beautiful and inhospitable. This low lying key covered, almost exclusively with Black Mangrove trees, teems with life; marine not human. Lord help the poor unfortunate sailor forced to spend the night on this deserted island. He would most likely require a blood transfusion in the morning from the millions of blood sucking mosquitos inhabiting the islands swampy interior.

Not a single palm trees calls Dog Island home. The Florida sun beams down unrelentingly. To find shade would mean probing into the squishy, root tangled perimeter of mangroves.

The sand bars and mud bogs that encircle Dog Island can better be described as sand traps and mud sucks. Get out of your kayak and walk and one literally puts his life in jeopardy. Well maybe not quite but close. For the sand and mud/organic matter is very porous and could better be traversed if one were wearing snow shoes. 

Oh, one more thing, there is not a drop of fresh water to be found on the entire island. None. Water water everywhere...but not a drop to drink.

This much being said, here's another paradox for you, this unfavorable place to visit is one of my favorite places to visit.

So why?

 Why do I paddle the better part of an hour to a place such as this?  Well because few people go there. It is a pristine environment barely touched be humans. And, did I mention the hugh variety of life that calls this island home?

Well a tremendous collection of coastal and marine life live there. That's why I go. It's like a Galapagos island to me and everything I see I pretend I'm discovering for the first time. 

So in my travel there yesterday I'm discovered: Algae. 

Green, brown and red.

Flowering plants 

like Seaside Ox Eye Daisy, Glasswort and Saltwort, Railroad vine, and Grasses, Spartina and Needle rush

Animals.

 Sponges, Worms, Jellys & Sand Dollars. Also Arthropods Galore Crustaceans such as crabs, several species, and barnacles and shrimps. 

Then Mollusks. 

Oh yes the mollusks. Both bivalves and univalves. 

And finally the Birds. 

Many seashore birds. The one of note on this excursion was the beautifully striking red billed Oyster Catcher.

And so the following is a photo journal of Dog Island.

There it is up ahead my version of Galapagos

Almost there...

And looking for some shade, any shade will do

A scene typical of the interior if the island. Those are Mangrove pneumatophores.

The beautiful Angel wing bivalves spends his entire live burried a foot or more in sand and mud. This island is one of their favorite places to dig.

Gorgeous Fidler Crab. Approximately a gazillion of them live here. They March in unison by thousands across the sand at low tide

Stone Crab juvenile

Hermit Crab in a Conch shell.

Marine worms

Crown Conch shell with Hermit Crab living inside.

Uh...don't have a clue what this is.

Western boundary of the island with grass instead of Mangroves.

Some shade, selfie, and lunch.

Beautiful Red Algae

The quick sand.

Eastern boundary Mangroves.

Lunch