It was still daylight when we got to Lungun Island. There were several boats on the river side. This is a popular swimming spot, with a rope to swing out over the water suspended from a big tree limb.
Most of the boats left as the sun went down.
This is Lungun Island, or Shell Island as some of the locals call it, in the early morning sun. The river runs on the far side. We are anchored on the E side.
It’s a popular spot for camping…or just hanging out with a camp fire. It’s not unusual to see a pontoon boat beached on this side. We dingy over and take Raisin for a walk. It’s a beautiful spot with huge old oak trees and spanish moss.
It was such a beautiful morning, we just swung on the anchor and enjoyed it.
As we headed down river towards Lake George, we spotted this gator. Most of them seem long and lean…this thing was fat.
Just look how wide it is. There is a lot of gator out of the water…and almost no tail…definitely a big one. Look how wide it is. The bumps on it’s back are pieces of bone covered by skin. They absorb the heat. That is how they stay warm.
Here’s a cutie…only 5 or 6 ft long. There is a definite difference in the size of the bumps on this one. Don’t know what they are called….my sister and her husband called them “skoots.”
Turtles sunning…
The “springs” already had a fair number of boats anchored and everyone was having fun in the water.
No one even noticed this little guy hiding in the bushes.
Jim and I like to anchor closer to the lake…out of the designated anchorage for the springs…on the run. It is much quieter and last year we had a Manatee come up to our boat….there used to be a nice 9’ gator in the same area, but we were told they had it removed.
I do get in the water here…for a quick dip to cool off….but not far from the ladder. If we really want to swim or snorkel we dingy into the springs. We really aren’t that far…that is us on the L. You can see we are one of the smaller boats…ours is much closer to the camera, too.
This little guy looks like it’s smiling at us. look at those pearly whites…I read that gators lose worn or broken teeth (they crunch bones and turtle shells) and can have as many as 3000 teeth in a lifetime.
We spent two nights at the springs….Fri and Sat night. We decided to leave on Sunday and this was the traffic coming in.
Looking back towards the springs…
in front of us…..the way in is very shallow so most people follow the same line in. You can’t tell it here….but we could see boats and jet skiis in a line back to the gates at the S end of the lake.
We decided to anchor on the Old Oklawaha River for the night….going to rename it “no see’um heaven”….(maybe heaven isn’t the right word?)
Jim tried his hand at fishing…even got his casting down to landing within a quarter mile of where he aimed. At least he took the big sinker off and added a bobber. I could just see that sinker coming through the window. We didn’t have fish for supper…..the “no see’ums” were so bad he gave up and we hauled anchor and headed to the mouth of the river….
We anchored on the St Johns River… near marker R 52, between the entrance of The Old Oklawaha River and Bear Creek. Nice spot…not too deep. That is important, since our only way of raising the anchor is either Jim or Me.
