Shipyard Island Canoe Trail

On 11/21, we spent the morning exploring the Shipyard Island Canoe Trail at Mosquito Lagoon. We launched from the boat ramp just inside the north entrance to the Canaveral National Seashore (you are allowed to drop off canoes and kayaks to launch there, but you must then park your vehicle across the street before launching). This is a convenient launch site, as you are directly across the river from the entrance to the canoe trail.

This is an interesting trail, and an especially great place to paddle in salt water. Once you cross Mosquito Lagoon from the boat ramp, you will be paddling in canals throughout Shipyard Island that motor boats are unable to reach. The trail is very shallow in many places - we even ran the canoe aground once. It's almost as if you have gone back in time on parts of the trail. We saw many species of birds this day, in particular several woodpeckers. We also observed from a distance something in the water in one of the canals, but could not catch up to determine if they were otters, manatee, or something else. Once back in the lagoon on the way to take out, we also passed several dolphin that were fairly close.

Once securing the canoe, we explored the Turtle Mound for the first time. This is a Timacuan Indian Mound, and the park has built a walkway to the top of the mound (the last picture below was taken from here). There is a nice view from the top of the mound, and we saw several varieties of butterflies from the walkway.

We also hiked the short trail to the Eldora Statehouse, and then walked on the beach for an hour or so. All in all another great day in Central Florida!


View from the canoe on one of the many canals making up the canoe trail.

Woodpeckers - taken from a long distance and cropped, so not very clear.

View from the Turtle Mound of Shipyard Island - you can barely make out the entrance to the trail in the middle of the shore line marked by 2 white poles.