Thursday, May 8, 2008

I spent five hours on the river Tuesday. I did the bull and back, about 3.5 miles each way. The bull is the Smithtown bull on Rt.25 where Rt.25A splits off and goes north. That is almost the southern end of the navigable part of the river. There’s less than a quarter mile of river south of Rt.25. It does not take five hours to do the bull and back. I went at a very leisurely pace and afterwards I explored some of my favorite haunts at my end of the river. Generally the bull run can be done in three relaxed hours or less.

I cruised through Terrapin Station both coming and going and saw at least a dozen Diamondback Terrapins. As long as you approach quietly and slowly you can almost always find terrapins here. The scales on the guy below are peeling. I neglected to bring my sunblock, too.

I also saw several snappers, one of which was huge. Humungous. You could land planes on his back. I’ll post his pic tomorrow. There were lots of pretty red-orange jellyfish in the water. You may not want to swim with them but they are cool to watch. Common Terns are starting to show up in numbers as well. Sharp looking birds. JK