Travels in a Tin Can

aluminium and open topped – as it were – with wooden planks to perch on,
quite unlike the kayaks that Emma and I had used before.
We were in the water for about three and a half hours - again good
value for money at $40 between us. The boats took two people each and
Emma took the control (freak) seat in ours, which is the rear seat. Amazingly,
and in spite of several collisions, we survived the trip without breaking off our
engagement.
Most of the other people were very friendly, except for two of the
singles who were obviously more experienced and very frosty whenever we
collided with them - imagine! The trip consisted of periods of sustained
paddling and then breaks when we floated in place and Doug told us more
about the park. He also pointed out wildlife, not that we saw much except
pelicans, some waders and a distant peregrine falcon.
Once out on the water exerting ourselves, and also once the sun came
up, we even got warm and stripped off some layers. Doug had not been
kidding when he said the going might be hard, especially when we were
paddling into the wind. However, the breaks gave us time to partially recover
and we were grateful for these.
What we were not grateful for was the stop near - or in my case in - a
mangrove 'mangle'. Interesting though these plants were, the ground round
them also exuded a strong sulphur smell. We were very pleased when Doug
said we were going to move off again, though this pleasure was short lived.
He asked if we were feeling lucky, to which the group stupidly replied ‘Yes’.
'OK then' our intrepid ranger said, 'we'll try to go round the key (small island)
but if there's not enough water we will have to head back against the wind'