Walking Trees
By Ryan Nance
My kayak slid noiselessly toward a tall tangle of black and red mangrove just off Lido Key. A throaty call rose from a flock of gold-jawed cormorants hidden among the dense branches.
From a low limb a few yards away, a dark-winged cormorant plunged into the clear water. High up in the branches was a great blue heron’s nest from which a bird flew with a twig twice its length in its beak. Against the sky, a squadron of black-and-white frigate birds circled as a solitary osprey kept an eye on my approach from a pine tree. I snuck, undetected, into a vibrant “birdopolis.”
I was a citizen of avian society, if only for an instant. It took a roaring pair of jet skis rounding an island a few hundred yards off for the whole tangle of mangrove to take flight – a thousand noisy feathers unfolding into the sky.
Now, I’d never been kayaking before – in fact, I’d be more likely to take a chartered cruise – but the pleasures of tooling around in my own vehicle were immediately obvious.
Not only was paddling a breeze, but I could slip unobtrusively into Lido Key’s mangrove paradise without scaring off the wildlife. My fellow paddlers and I mastered the art of stealth in fifteen minutes of paddling practice in the serene waters of Sarasota Bay.
We had pushed off from the South Lido Key Nature Center, just around the corner from upscale St. Armands Circle. Then we headed for the mangrove tunnels themselves.
At first glance, Sarasota’s treasures are its art galleries and museums, historic architecture, sophisticated shopping and dining and, of course, its barrier islands and beaches. But nestled amid the city’s urbane jewels is an astounding natural diversity of dolphins, manatees, fish and birds, and the environment that supports them.
Vacationers and locals alike can experience Southwest Florida’s intricate coastal ecosystem without ever leaving the city.
Our kayaks skirted the mangrove islands first. They appeared weightless, just a thicket of roots and branches, seemingly impenetrable. Above the tangle lurched Australian pines, an exotic species which found a home on the islets created out of the Army Corps of Engineers’ dredging. Queen conch and lightning whelk shells glittered along the shallow bay bottom as sea grass swayed in the current. Since the tours are small and relaxed, I was able to paddle at my own pace, and couldn’t resist stopping to pull up shells.
Baby blue crabs floated by on sea grape leaves and mullet jumped all around. White least terns wheeled overhead, diving for breakfast. Though I couldn’t see an opening in the mangrove, the first kayak slipped in and disappeared. I followed, entering an enchanted wood. Slender, finger-like roots reached patiently down into calm tidal waters. Sun dappled the surface like the muted light in a quiet grotto.
The channels, dredged in the 1950s to discourage mosquito breeding, are too narrow for anything larger than a kayak or a canoe. At such close range, I saw both the red and black mangrove trees in detail. Red mangroves grow horizontally, their roots reminiscent of stilts. Land builders, they tap the shallow bottom, holding the sand together, and create land where there isn’t any. Taller, and with darker foliage, black mangroves are easily recognized by their many pipette roots growing up from the moist sand. Black mangroves convert the sand into soil. We bumped quietly along, ducking under low-hanging branches.
The tunnel pools are nurseries for small fry, and starfish and crabs stalked among the submerged roots. At the edge of a serene pool, I spotted a black mangrove snake – orange-skinned and elusive – high in the branches, drooping in voluptuous coils, its gem-like eyes glowing. It looked me over, flicked its tongue, and went back to basking in the sunlight.
Over lunch at St. Armands and with the salt still in our sun-kissed hair, my wife and I each tried to relay to the other what marvels we had seen – a slant of light, a particular sound, a rush of color.
A simple we-should-do-that-again said it all.
