Matanzas River & Matanzas Inlet - March 2018

This is an article from my website, ExploreFloridaWaters.com. You can read the post on the website at: http://www.explorefloridawaters.com/matanzas-river-matanzas-inlet-march-2018/

For the past few months, I’d been leading an American Heritage Girls (a similar program to Girl Scouts) troop through their marine biology badge. Finally, it was time to take them out on the water to truly experience the world of marine biology, and finish up a few badge requirements. So, we decided to take the girls on a boat ride in the Matanzas River.

The Matanzas River is a long, narrow lagoon in northeast Florida. The section of the Matanzas River from north of Palm Coast to Matanzas Inlet is mostly natural – this is where we planned to take the American Heritage Girls, so that they could see the true beauty of coastal Florida without a ton of houses and docks lining the waterway.

After launching our boat at Bing’s Landing, we began heading northward, towards Matanzas Inlet. Our plan was to take the girls up the Matanzas River to Matanzas Inlet, stopping to watch the wildlife and showing them Fort Matanzas from our boat.

We spotted two dolphins – an adult and a juvenile – hunting in the mouth of Pellicer Creek, just north of Washington Oaks Gardens State Park. The adult simply mulled around in the creek, but the juvenile began chasing fish, and provided me with several great photos.

Dolphin "porpoising" in pursuit of a fish

That face!

After leaving the two dolphins, we continued northward toward Matanzas Inlet. Along the way, we came across a lone dolphin apparently hunting along the shoreline of the west side of the north tip of Rattlesnake Island. We watched this individual for a few minutes, but never saw much action (other than a few fluking behaviors), so we moved on.

Along the way to Matanzas Inlet, we stopped at Fort Matanzas. Although boaters on the river are not permitted to pull over and enter the fort, there are guided tours of Fort Matanzas offered by the National Park Services – however, we had no plans of going on the tour today, so we simply drove by and looked at the fort.

When we reached Matanzas Inlet, we headed under the Matanzas Bridge and found a place to go fishing. I could see that, although the weather had been perfect in the intercoastal, further offshore looked very rough, with a fortress of big waves crashing over the offshore sandbars.

Big waves out there

Brown Pelicans in Matanzas Inlet

It was a lot choppier on the east side of the bridge than on the west side

After a failed attempt at trying to hook some fish, we spotted another pair of dolphins swimming through a tidal channel on the southwest side of Matanzas Inlet. To reach these dolphins, we would have to take our boat across a submerged sandbar. We decided to give it a try, but ended up running aground in the shallow water. We tilted the motor all the way up – this allowed the boat to drift over the sandbar. We hoped that the current would carry the boat off of the sandbar and into the channel, but instead, it only pushed us into a shallower part of the sandbar! Finally, there was only one thing left to do – with the exception of one person, everyone got out of the boat and pushed it to deeper water. 

We took a few photos of the dolphins, but unfortunately, we learned that several of the kids on board had to get back to their parents soon, as they had appointments to make on the way home. So, we raced back to Bing’s Landing, and after tying up the boat, everyone got off.

For a while, we all stood or sat around a pavilion at the park at Bing’s Landing, telling about what we had done and seen. The people who had appointments left first, but it wasn’t long before all of the families had gotten in their cars and driven off.

Dad and I had no appointments to make, so we decided to go out for one last ride in the boat. We left Bing’s Landing, and began heading northward towards Matanzas Inlet once again. Along the way, when we were just north of Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, we spotted something large that had washed up in the shallow water on the east shore of the Matanzas. It turned out to be some sort of falling apart old tugboat. Just as we were leaving the sunken vessel, I noticed a large yacht cruising down the channel, heading our way. It was so big that as it moved through the water, it created a tunneling wave at its bow and left behind a giant wake. I remember thinking, “A dolphin would probably love to ride at that bow and surf in that wake.” Literally as I was saying this in my mind, I saw a dorsal fin slip below the surface just in front of the big boat, then I saw a dolphin “porpoise” beside where the first had surfaced. A group of dolphins really was riding at the bow of the yacht!

BOW RIDING DOLPHINS!!

One of my favorite bow riding shots

Dolphin leaping in the wake of the big yacht

For several minutes, we raced beside the yacht, my camera snapping every few seconds as the dolphins leaped, rolled, and surfed in the wave. When we were just in front of the Washington Oaks Gardens State Park river overlook deck, the dolphins dropped off of the wave, and began casually mulling around in the middle of the lagoon. We watched them for a few more minutes, then decided to move on.

We took the boat northward and stopped for a little while at Jordan Island. Jordan Island is a relatively large island that separates the main Matanzas River from Peillicer Creek and the salt marsh to the west. First come, first serve camping is allowed on Jordan Island free of charge. Although I’ve been camping on Jordan Island before (and even slept out in the boat, under the stars), we had no plans of going camping on this trip.

Jordan Island

Around that time, we decided that it was getting late, and we should start heading back to the boat ramp. From Jordan Island we drove straight back to Bing’s Landing, stopping once, however, to see a raccoon that was walking along the marshy shoreline. 

Sorry it's kinda grainy

What an amazing day this had been – and a great reminder that you never know what surprises await when taking a boat out on the water!