Paddling Lake Marian

After spending lots of time with our friends in Stuart, Florida, we had a whole day to spend in our campground here in Kenansville, Florida.  Our campground is known as Lake Marian Paradise RV and Mobile Home Park.  It's quite green and sits on the shore of picturesque Lake Marian in Kenansville.  We took our kayaks over to the public boat ramp and eased them out into the lake:

Many fishermen beat us out into the lake, and we found them lurking close to shore, trying to catch those large mouth bass:

For ourselves, all we wanted to do was to implement social distancing to avoid the Covid-19 coronavirus which is plaguing our country (psychologically, if not physically):

We paddled west along the shore of the lake and then south across the mirror-like waters to find these cheeky anhinga enjoying their perches on old fenceposts that extend out into the lake waters:

The anhinga did not like our approach, and, more than once, we scared them out across the lake:

 This bird, perched on one of the pilings, was unindentifiable:

Throughout the area, farmers were undertaking burns of their fields, or rangers were implementing prescribed burns of public lands, in order to minimize the risks of unexpected wildfires.  This burn created its own cloud, which we thought might head our way and give us rain or lightning.  Luckily, it stayed east of us:

 As we paddled, we accompanied white pelicans as they searched for their next fish meal:

Again, the anhinga kept watch along our route:

This anhinga flew from his perch and gave us a look from his spot on the water:

The public boat ramp was about 0.75 mile from our campground.  After we crossed the lake and paddled back, then munched a lunch, we set out to find our campground, and we had a chance to view it from the water:

Kathy spotted this stork lurking about beside a fish cleaning station where some neighbors were preparing their day's catch for dinner:

Our campground sits astride two or three canals.  After spending a while on the main canal watching the stork, we paddled down to a smaller waterway and scrutinized the boats that perched on the shore:

Finishing that, we paddled back out into the main body of the lake.  Kathy led the way:

We saw alligators everywhere.  This was the largest of the alligators we saw, and s/he was guarding the entrance to one of the inlets leading into our campground:

The alligator didn't seem to faze these local anhinga types, who hung out together and caught each other up on the local news:

This was one of our favorite anhinga of the day --

 -- and this was another:

Those cheeky anhinga are real characters, and they make any visit to a lake interesting!  We finished our paddle, mounted the kayaks on our Jeep and made our way back to our campsite to get ready for our move north tomorrow.