Mangrove Love

Some of you may have figured out that my alter-ego is Manola. Yeah, that's the penname of a wily wordsmith who loves fishing and all things natural about Florida. Yesterday, I went traipsing through the mangroves during mid-tide at Matheson Hammock Park. I shot this video with my cellphone.



A friend of mine told me that I reminded him of Honey Santana in Carl Hiassen's novel Nature Girl and even though I wasn't kayaking in the Ten Thousand Islands, I was bitten by quite a few mosquitoes during this impromptu adventure. (Nature Girl is a splendid, funny novel written by Carl Hiaasen, which my fellow writer Matt Meltzer just reviewed over at 411.)

Matheson Hammock is a Miami-Dade county park located right next to Fairchild. It has beachfront, mangrove and hardwood hammock environments. After 4:30 pm (wink, wink) you can drive straight through to the end -- where Biscayne Bay meets land's end -- without paying admission.

So there are no excuses! Get your butt out there to enjoy the heat -- bugs and all. There's nothing like being bitten by the real Florida bug: the one that makes you fall in love with this place!

If you are interested in learning more about mangroves, stop by my friend Xavier Cortada's Reclamation Project.