I used to think Honeymoon Island
was simply a scenic link to Caladesi Island. While the name
was fanciful, I saw a lot of palms and clumps of sea oats
and not much more. Entering from Dunedin, my husband and I
would lug the kids, the cooler and beach gear to the ferry
dock and await our trip to Honeymoon's remote neighbor.
My shortsightedness had kept us from enjoying Honeymoon's
pristine wilderness for many years. Then my 12-year-old, the
family's wildlife activist, wanted to learn more about
island ecology. To accommodate her curiosity, I scheduled a
family visit to Honeymoon Island State Recreation Area.
We made the most of the island's wilderness appeal by taking
a guided tour of the island through "It's Our
Nature." (itsournature.com) I give our guide, Linda
Taylor, credit. She got through to my tween-age daughters
and truly made the island come alive for our whole family.
And she did it without a monotone- voiced script, to boot.
Throughout our nearly two-hour hike, we learned many
interesting tidbits.
Honeymoon and Caladesi, she explained, were once a solid
barrier island, but Mother Nature ravaged through the
interior of Hog Island during a hurricane in 1921. The two
new islands were renamed, and the waterway between the
islands became known, appropriately, as Hurricane Pass. Some
2,400 acres of the land at Honeymoon Island remain
submerged; the 385 acres that are above tidal zones are
laced with the Osprey and Pelican Cove trails.
Taylor also told us there are 20 active osprey nests on
Honeymoon, which is open to visitors from 8 a.m. to 8:15
p.m. throughout the year.
"During the late-winter months, the birds tenaciously
repair their nests that rest high above the ground in dead
trees. They look as though they are going to and from The
Home Depot for building supplies," she said with a
laugh.
"Ospreys truly persevere at the task of fixing their
nests," she added. "Once I saw an osprey hauling a
pine branch to fit into the nest. It dropped from the nest,
and the bird dove down to the ground and picked it up again.
The branch fell eight more times, and the bird dove and
replaced it over and over before the branch stayed. They
know they have a job and do it well."
With Taylor's help, we observed not only osprey, but bald
eagles, baby hawks and an American oystercatcher. As soon as
she spotted activity in the distance, she would quickly scan
the area with binoculars, identify the subject and pass the
binoculars to one of our family members for a quick look.
We learned that the Spanish explorers used sea-grape leaves
as plates, and that early settlers ate the palm hearts in a
dish known as swamp-cabbage stew.
She quizzed the kids about the Spanish moss.
"Do you know what people used this for at the turn of
the last century?"
"No," they admitted in unison.
"It was used to stuff furniture and mattresses,"
she explained. "So when people tucked their kids in and
said, `Don't let the bedbugs bite,' they were talking about
the bugs that often settled in the Spanish moss."
After hearing thunder, feeling the wind kick up and seeing
the skies darken as a midmorning storm moved into the
region, Taylor spoke.
"Did you feel the temperature suddenly drop as the
winds changed?" she asked.
As we made our way along Pelican Cove trail to the parking
lot, I realized it was the basic observations -- the ones
typically overshadowed by the hectic activity of daily life
-- that made Taylor's tour such a treat.
Honeymoon Island, after all, is teeming with interesting
findings. One just has to take the time to look.
Marisa Moks-Unger is a
free-lance writer.
Copyright 2002 by The Orlando Sentinel. Reproduced
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction
or distribution is prohibited without permission.
"Linda Taylor is an
outdoorsy type. Not the rugged and wind-beaten,
can't-tell-if-she's a-female type of outdoorsy, but more
the commune-with-the-trees, explore-hidden-areas
outdoorsy.
An educator and a lifelong
naturalist with 24 years of experience in the health and
recreation field Taylor has combined her skills to create
It's Our Nature. Her unique company creates safe,
supportive nature experiences -especially for women and
girls -that promote physical, mental and spiritual
well-being.
In a world where we don't even
have to leave our house to get groceries, Taylor plucks
you from the cool confines of your home and takes you
beyond the beaches to explore Tampa Bay's big and
beautiful back yard."
COOL
CLEARWATER BEACHES:
Nature's wonders captivate at
dazzling
Caladesi Island
SPECIAL FLORIDA SECTION
Lisa Carden
-
Orlando Sentinel
Sunday, June 04, 2000
CALADESI ISLAND - It is the
beach that brought me here. But an hour and a half after
arriving on Caladesi Island, a state park off the coast of
Dunedin, I have yet to lay
eyes on it.
Instead of joining other
visitors making a beeline for the Gulf surf whenthe
Caladesi Island Connection ferry docks on the St. Joseph
Sound side of the island, my husband, son and I queue up
with 14 others for an It's Our Nature walk. We follow
Linda Taylor, founder of the tour company, to a sign that
greets visitors with a smattering of information on the
barrier island.
All I know about the island at
this point is that it has been on Stephen"Dr.
Beach" Leatherman's top 10 list of U.S. beaches for
several years. The beach, by virtue of such things as the
quality of its sand and water, is again ranked No. 6 for
2000. But, as Taylor will show us, the island holds much
more for visitors than its pristine beach.
Caladesi Island (pronounced
cala-DEE-SEE) is a taste of unadulterated coastal Florida.
No high-rise condos. No beach rental stands. No hotels. No
fishing pier. Besides the ferry dock, a 99-slip marina, a
small concession stand/park office and two bathhouses, the
island is blessedly undeveloped.
Before leading us down a
boardwalk trail, Taylor tells us a little about the
island's history and habitats.
The park consists of 650 "upland" acres and more
than 1,800 acres of mangroves and grass flats surrounding
the island. In 1921, a ferocious storm severed Caladesi
from neighboring Honeymoon Island, then known as Hog
Island.
Caladesi was first inhabited
by Native Americans, though no one knows what tribe. A
survey done by the Smithsonian Institution revealed
several trash and ceremonial mounds on the island, left
behind by the ancient people.
"Caladesi," we
learn, means "beautiful bayou" in loosely
translated Spanish. And, judging from what we will see
during our three-hour walk, the island is one of the few
on Florida's coast that still can live up to such an
accolade.
Our 31/2-mile walk will take
us through three island habitats: beach scrub, pine
flatwoods and hardwood oak hammock. Taylor, who wears a
broad-rimmed cap pulled low over her tan face, rattles off
the names plants and trees we will see: southern red
cedar; cabbage (sabal) palm, Florida's state tree; slash
pines; saw palmettos, a favorite habitat of snakes.
Then she urges us, "Take
time to smell, hear and feel nature."
We begin, trodding toward the
beach. But before we get within sight of it, we bear left,
leaving the boardwalk behind for loose sand that shifts
like powder under our sneakers and makes our calves ache
with effort.
The sun is high above our
heads by this time, but its rays are muffled by gray
clouds that threaten to spill rain on the parched island.
Our predominantly female group
is an interesting mix of demographics. Besides my family
trio, there are two mother-daughter pairs celebrating this
Sunday, Mother's Day, with a natural twist. There are five
women from a local business networking group, and a
50s-something couple. Three other women, all from the
Clearwater/St. Petersburg area, have traveled here by
themselves, out of curiosity.
Some in our group have been to
Caladesi before, many only to experience its beach. But
most of us are here for the first time, to discover a
little of Florida's natural history, to take a tame walk
on the wild side.
Taylor leads the walk in fits
and starts. It's clear that even after walking these paths
for two years with groups like ours, her fascination with
the place has yet to be quenched.
We pull up frequently -
sometimes after a few steps, sometimes gaining as much as
several hundred yards - so Taylor can share something with
us. She shows us a "toothache" tree, which has
leaves that were once chewed to relieve dental pain.
Farther along the path, we see
the squiggly "footprints" left by a snake that
has slithered across the sand path.
When we walk through a stand
of pines, their trunks charred by fire, she talks of
controlled burns.
This burn, Taylor explains,
was done to keep scrub oaks from becoming towering trees
that could create shade that would change the ecosystem of
the pine flatwoods. Despite their wounds, the pines seem
healthy. The scent of them fills the air - a clean smell
that releases sudden memories of my all-but-forgotten Girl
Scout camping trips.
Taylor turns to face us, her
animated gestures commanding attention. "Watch
closely," she says, "and you'll see the earth
changing under your feet."
Come to think of it, it
already has. When we entered the stand of pines, we left
behind the low beach scrub. Ahead, we see oaks spreading
their limbs. We are climbing a little higher above sea
level, Taylor explains. Still, the island's highest spot
is only a few feet above the sea.
"The altitude . . . the
air is getting real thin up here!" jokes a woman
asshe feigns a swoon.
"I'm about to pass out
tissues for nose bleeds," Taylor throws back with a
wide smile.
The sun has shrugged the
clouds away and is beating down upon us. We sip water from
bottles that swing from our hips while Taylor points out
more plants - "tread softly," a white-flowered
member of the nettle family; soft, feathery dog fennel;
prickly pear cacti, shriveled from the drought but still
bearing a beautiful yellow flower.
Taylor brings the group up
short at the lip of a bay. She points west to a
strip of sand that separates
the inland water from the Gulf. This once was Dunedin
Pass, or Big Pass. But nature, with its fit of storms, has
delivered enough sand to this spot to close the pass,
making it possible to walk from Clearwater Island north to
Caladesi Island.
Taylor pulls a book from her
pack, Yesteryear I Lived in Paradise. Myrtle Scharrer
Betz, its author, was born and raised on the island.
Taylor tells us a little about Betz, who penned the book
when she was 87.
As a young girl, Betz rose
well before dawn, made her widowed father's dinner, then
rowed herself across St. Joseph Sound - two miles and 238
strokes - to attend school in Dunedin. Betz left the
island when she married, but returned to live there for a
short time with her husband and daughter.
From the bay we turn down a
path toward the ruins of the houses built by Betz and her
father, Henry Scharrer.
As we enter the oak hammock,
Taylor urges us to look beneath our feet. The sand, firmer
here, is riddled with small holes dug and inhabited by
fiddler crabs.
Then she bids us to lift our
gazes to discover the hammock's aerial garden of Spanish
moss and resurrection fern. High above the treetops,
someone sights a osprey, a fish clutched in its claws.
We reach the ruins and stand
among the stones that mark the foundation of Betz' house.
Part of its fireplace still stands. A sign near it
admonishes visitors not to dig up or remove anything from
the site.
Taylor again brings out the
book, passing it around so we can look at a picture of
Betz' abode. It was an undistinguished wooden structure -
simple, small and utilitarian.
Taylor then leads us to an
unusual pine prized by Betz. The pine, which Betz calls
the "harp" tree, has double upright limbs that
sprout from a single trunk, It reminded her of the string
instrument played by her mother, who died when Betz was 6
years old.
Taylor asks whether anyone in
our group had met Betz before her death in 1992 at the age
of 97. Several women relate memories. One speaks of a
visit that Betz paid her women's group.
"She was just a little
old lady. Anybody's grandmother. It was surprising to
think of her living the kind of life she did."
Before we leave the hammock,
Taylor asks us for 10 minutes of quiet as we walk toward
the beach. We set off, quiet as monks who have taken a vow
of silence, lending an ear to the voice of the land and
its inhabitants.
Laughing gulls cry
overhead. The sight of an osprey brings only the point of
a finger. Pine needles give way under our feet with
brittle crunches.
Black and red mangroves hug
the path, signaling that we are nearing the Gulf coast of
the island. Trees give way to chest-high scrub, and
suddenly we see the beach.
There is a smattering of
applause as we approach the watery reward of our journey.
Many of us fall to the sand to pull off socks and shoes.
We wade in the surf like children, careful to shuffle our
feet to urge stingrays out of the way.
I stand in the water, which
laps cooly my ankles, and savor the No. 6 beach in the
United States. We are about half a mile from where most
visitors have clustered.
As I turn to make my way toward the unfurled umbrellas of
civilization, I picture Betz as a young girl, frolicking
in the turquoise waves as they break upon the shore of her
own little piece of paradise.
Caladesi Island State Park
is off the coast of Dunedin, north of Clearwater. It is
accessible only by private boat or the Caladesi Island
Connection pedestrian ferry. Visitors who take the ferry,
which sails from Honeymoon Island State Recreation Area on
State Road 586 in Dunedin, must pay a $4 per carload park
admission. For more information on Caladesi Island State
Park, call 727-469-5918. On the Web, check www.dep.state.fl.us/parks/
The ferry to Caladesi
leaves hourly beginning at 10 a.m., weather permitting.
Round-trip fare is $6 for adults, $3.50 for children ages
4 to 12, and free for kids under age 4. Maximum stay on
the island is four hours. For more information on the
Caladesi Island Connection ferry, call 727-734-5263.
Linda Taylor meets It's Our
Nature walk participants at the ferry dock on
Honeymoon Island. The
guided nature walk of Caladesi Island is $15 per person.
Taylor also leads a variety of other trips, including
hikes on
An
entrepreneur finds her niche in nature. Her company gets
people in touch with
the Florida outdoors.
By MAUREEN BYRNE
© St. Petersburg Times, published
April 21, 2000
DUNEDIN -- Linda Taylor loves
nature. So much so that she quit her
high-paying corporate sales job
four years ago and started her own company,
It's Our Nature.
Now, instead of traveling
throughout the Southeast selling sports products,
she walks and paddles for a
living, helping others discover the Florida
outdoors.
"I've been a naturalist all
my life," says Taylor, 45, who grew up on the New Jersey seashore.
Taylor believes spending time in
nature is beneficial to one's health. It brings balance, improves clarity
and enhances creativity, she says.
"Nature touches something
very deep inside of us," she says. "We need to
feel, hear and smell it with all
our senses. It really touches our spirit."
To celebrate Earth Day and the
fourth anniversary of It's Our Nature, which
was launched on Earth Day in 1996,
Taylor will host a free event Saturday at Honeymoon Island State Recreation
Area. The noon-to-3 p.m. event will feature a guided nature walk, tai
chi lessons on the beach and crafts for children and adults. Park
admission is $4 per vehicle.
Taylor, who has a physical
education degree from Springfield College in Springfield, Mass., moved here in
1988. Eight years later, she turned her love of the beaches, bays and
wildlife into a job.
Her passion for the environment
shines as she guides people on walks on
Caladesi Island State Park and
Honeymoon Island. She eagerly shares her knowledge of the barrier islands,
much of it gleaned from local environmental and historical
groups, to residents and visitors alike.
Riding a ferry to Caladesi Island,
Taylor points to an osprey flying across St. Joseph Sound. The eyes of nine
women accompanying her on a recent tour of Caladesi Island quickly scan
the sky.
On the island, she points out
mangroves and explains their importance to the marine environment. She warns them
of rattlesnakes, poison ivy and other hidden dangers. "Don't touch
the white flowers," she cautions. "They're nettles and they'll sting
you."
She explains why there are charred
stumps and burned palms on the island. She tells them the trees are
deliberately set on fire to help rejuvenate the brush and to kill foreign plants.
She shows the women tracks in the
soft sand. The marks are the tiny footprints of an armadillo, she
surmises.
As they stroll along a three-mile
trail, she draws their attention to each of the island's three terrains:
beach scrub, pine flatwoods and oak hammock. "This is a great place to
take a big, deep breath," she suggests while standing under a patch of pines.
The women begin to slowly inhale
and exhale. After all, deep breaths and tranquil thoughts are encouraged
on Taylor's outings. "I'm trying to create a gentle partnership with
nature," she later says.
Taylor also has a partnership with
the state. Her company has a contract with Gulf Islands GEOpark, which
encompasses Caladesi and Honeymoon islands, to provide eco-tourism
opportunities for the public. In turn, she gives a percentage of her proceeds to the
state.
"She's been a great asset for
us," says Perry Smith, manager of Gulf Islands GEOpark. "She's been
a real plus to our operation."
Skip Meadows, 58, of Clearwater
thinks so, too. "I love this," she says as she follows Taylor on the winding
trail. "It's fantastic. I've been out here a number of times, but I've never
taken the (nature) walk."
Soon a small beach appears out of
nowhere. Taylor points to Dunedin Pass and tells the women how it closed in
1985, when Hurricane Elena blew by the coast. She shows them pictures in
the book Yesteryear I Lived in Paradise, which was penned by the daughter
of Henry Scharrer, a native of Scotland who lived on Caladesi Island 100 years
ago.
Back on the trail, the women walk
in silence under the shade of oak trees, listening to footsteps in the
brush and chirps of birds overhead. They follow the path to a clearing and
step onto a white sandy beach that meets the Gulf of Mexico. The women stop
and savor the sight before walking along the shore, the final stretch.
The guided tour is a learning
experience for Mary Lowther, 53, who moved from Minnesota to Tampa two years
ago. "I feel more connected with Florida now," she says.
Connecting people to nature is
what Taylor hopes to accomplish on her guided tours, which also include bird
watching walks on Honeymoon Island, kayak trips near Fort De Soto Park and
full-moon walks on the northern tip of Clearwater Beach.
About 70 percent of Taylor's
business comes from women. She says the gentle, moderately paced walks and kayak
journeys appeal more to women, but she
would like more men to discover
their simple pleasures.
"I'm actually trying to
appeal to the person who doesn't consider themselves an outdoorsman or
outdoorswoman," she says. "They just know they like
being in nature."
