Boca Ciega Millennium Park

After taking the girls for their walk, I decided to check out Boca Ciega Millennium Park. I wanted to see the kayak/canoe launch. When I go there, I seen 3 people preparing to launch a canoe. I thought to myself, “these people didn’t check the tide chart.” The water was so shallow.

I walked around the board walk and still couldn’t figure out where these people were going. I figured they were going to walk a trail to the water like I had seen 2 guys with fishing poles do.


I finally climbed the tower, because without the tower, you can’t see the water through the mangroves. I heard a man ask his wife, “have they launched that canoe yet.”

“No”, she replied.

He walked to that side of the platform and looked down at the people preparing to launch the canoe. I said, “ don’t see how they can do it. The water isn’t very deep.”

“This is high tide.”

High tide. As you can see, from the picture on the left, the water doesn’t get very high. And I would say the launch is a good 40 feet back from the board walk.

Then I asked myself, "I wonder when high tide began?"

"I’m only 15 minutes away. I could go home get my kayak, and be in the water in 30 - 45 minutes from now." I jumped in the car, looking at the clouds out the window, hoping we weren’t going to get a storm any time soon.

Got on the computer to check the tides. (I’m a dork! The park posts the high and low tide times for the month at the entrance of the launch site.) Good news as I sat down with the iBook, high tide was 12:49 and the time on my iBook said 12:35. I was in business. Smeared sunscreen on me, filled the water jugs up with water, (after I had to replace the 5 gallon bottle on the water cooler.), loaded up the kayak, put Charlie in her crate, and said to myself, “forget the bathroom tile. I’m going kayaking.” (By the way, we have to take showers at Art’s because I have the bathroom torn apart.)

It is so cool. To get out into Boca Ciega Bay, I had to paddle through this mangrove tunnel. This was truly a Florida experience.

Once out in the bay, I seen a Reddish Egret. I turned the kayak around to get a picture. As you can see, he posed for me.

From the tower and the water you can see the multimillion dollar homes of Redington Beach and Madeira Beach. I didn’t have to worry about the people in the boats zooming trough the water. The area I was in, the water was about 3 feet deep.

It all came to an end too soon. Thunder in the distance told me it was time to get out of the water. Other people, including 3 guys standing in the water fishing, ignored the distant booms. The weather changes too quickly down here to ignore the the thunder. I’ve heard of people hit by lightening on the beach, and there wasn’t a cloud over the area.


I just had to find the mangrove tunnel. Pinellas County could do a better job of marking the way back to the launch. I used the tower for my marker. (I had water on the lens. )


Coming back to the launch I had a spectator.

On my way out of the park I had to slow down for a Gopher Tortoise. Once he crossed the road, he really started to move.