Kayaking: Samsons Island

Today, Heidi, Gabe, Q, and I went kayaking in Satellite Beach.  Q just bought a kayak and he was eager to get out on the water.  It has been a while since Heidi and I have been kayaking so we were excited to go.  Everyone wanted to check out Samsons Island.  Samsons Island is a 52-acre island in the Banana River owned by the City of Satellite Beach.  You can only access it by boat and it has campgrounds, restroom facilities, picnic areas, and boat docks.  The island has some canals going through it.  It is covered by mangroves and some other vegetation.  The island used to be covered with Australian pines that had taken over.  Australian pines are a non-native tree that chokes out the native vegetation and wildlife.  There has been a clearing effort to remove the non-native trees and replant with native vegetation.  The island still has some Australian pines.  You can find more information about the island at the Satellite Beach Recreation department website.

According to KayakGuide.com, you can put in at the Satellite Beach Fire Station and kayak a short distance to the island.  However, upon arrival we found out that the ramp was closed for liability reasons.  There was an information sheet box at the previous ramp site with some other ramp suggestions.  We decided to go further south to Oars and Paddles park.  Turns out this ramp is about a 2.5 mile paddle to the island.  That is a pretty far distance going against the wind.  We took the Banana River side up the island and the Grand Canal side back.  The wind was crazy on the river.  Once we got to the Island and paddled into the inner canals it was significantly easier to paddle.

Paddle Track

Once we paddled through some of the inner canals, we docked at a clearing and explored the island.  In the clearing we immediately found 2 great horned owls in the Australian pines.  They hung out for a while before they flew away.

Great Horned Owl

The bugs were out in full force and even with bug spray we were eaten alive.  I would like to go back to the island to camp, but not until mosquito season is over!  Along with owls and mosquitoes, we also saw a few turtles, osprey, and fish.  There were a lot of good trails on the island and some nice picnic areas.  Believe it or not, the island had a very nice restroom facility.  On the south side of the island there are a bunch of dead trees with chain saw cuts about 2/3 of  the way through the trunk near the base of the tree.  I'm not sure why they are cut like that.  It is possible that is how they kill the Australian Pines.  That's only a guess though.  On the water, in the canals it is very secluded and makes you forget that you are actually quite close to residential development.

Samsons Island

The trip back through the Grand Canal was very peaceful.  The houses on the canal are huge!  We were commenting about what it would be like to have enough money to live there.  The taxes and insurance on those houses must be ridiculous.

This was my first paddle with my GPS and I really appreciated having it.  My sense of direction is terrible and it helped me figure out where I was going on the island.  I put the GPS in a small insert in my kayak seat while I was paddling.  However, I forgot that it was there when we arrived back at the dock.  As a result, my GPS took a ride on the top of my car in the kayak.  I don't understand how it didn't fall out when I was pouring the water out of the kayak, but I was just grateful it was still there when I got home.  I'll have to be more careful next time.
 
This is a great paddle.  I'd like to do it again when it's cooler and maybe combine it with a camping/geocaching trip.