Photo: Onajide Shabaka

sun-sentinel.com/travel/sfl-jackislandbrmar30,0,230118.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Taking the footbridge to unspoiled Jack Island

By Alan Snel

Special correspondent

March 30, 2008

Nature lover Leslie McGuirk has lived in the Vero Beach area since 1999 and thought she knew all the cool environmental havens in the area.

But the children’s book author and illustrator was pleasantly surprised when, for the first time, she recently sauntered along the trails of Jack Island State Preserve, a lush mangrove island tucked away in the Intracoastal off Route A1A, a mile north of the Fort Pierce Inlet.

It’s easy to pass the preserve’s entrance road that leads to a small parking lot. Jack Island visitors need to stroll along a footbridge to reach this spit of land (1,342 acres) that is dominated by mangroves, trail-side ghost crabs and an impressive array of bird life.

“You have to walk the bridge to get to the island,” McGuirk said, “which means there will never be a car in there. Any time you can get into nature and get into the woods, it’s great. Most people who live on the coast don’t think about walking in the woods. They’re thinking about walking on the beach.”

Several large condo buildings stand sentinel on the beach side of A1A. But across the road here at Jack Island, there’s a stark contrast — a serene and secluded refuge offering an up-close look at mangroves, small land crabs that scurry into their holes when they hear a shoe along the trail and birds that range from ospreys and great blue herons to pelicans and egrets.

“Not only do you get birds that are coming over from the ocean shore, but you’re also getting birds that like the brackish water,” said Tessa Sheridan, park services specialist for Fort Pierce Inlet State Park, which manages Jack Island State Preserve. The state has managed the preserve since 1963.

Jack Island State Preserve has a 4.2-mile dirt and grass trail that runs along its perimeter. In the last decade, the preserve’s top-drawing year was 1998-99, when nearly 37,000 visitors visited Jack Island. The number of visitors fell to 15,283 in 2004-05, when hurricanes struck Florida’s east coast.

About halfway along the main trail is a 30-foot tower, an easily accessible perch for observing the Indian River lagoon and the great blue herons, wood storks or ibises winging above the tree line of mangroves and hammocks.

There are also trails that crisscross the island if you want to walk a shorter distance. For example, one trail that cuts across the island to the observation tower is only a mile long. The trails are very easy to negotiate.

You will also see culverts. Jack Island is a natural island that also includes dredged debris that was used to make the dike and culvert system for flushing mosquitoes from their breeding areas. Mosquitoes like to lay their eggs in mud along the island, but, according to Sheridan, water is released through the big metal pipes to flood the areas normally used for breeding from April to October.

On weekends, you will see fishermen with lines dropped in the brackish waters, a mix of fresh and salt. Their catches will include mullet, snook and sheepshead.

The preserve is also ideal if you’re fishing for solitude.

“Where can you get to walk for more than an hour and not see anyone?” McGuirk asked. “The secret, hidden element is just so cool. Just to walk over that bridge is fun for people.”

Added Sheridan: “I just love standing on that bridge and wondering about all the things below my feet.”

Local runners have discovered the trail. In fact, the “Jack Island Cross Country Run” celebrates its 30th anniversary the second Saturday of December. Usually, about 100 runners participate.

“It’s a great example of the original Florida and how it was way back when,” said Mike Melton, an ultra-marathon runner and Jensen Beach money management planner who has sponsored the Jack Island race since 2003. “Jack Island has been mercifully left to be as the rest of the area has developed and lost its original character.”

Alan Snel’s last story for Travel was on biking State Road 17.

Copyright © 2011, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Let’s take this journey…

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Hold on a second, here’s why fractals are now important to me. Ron Eglash has a TED.com talk that you must view. The link to the video and transcript is below.

“I am a mathematician, and I would like to stand on your roof.” This is how Ron Eglash greeted many African families while researching the intriguing fractal patterns he noticed in villages across the continent. He talks about his work exploring the rigorous fractal math underpinning African architecture, art and even hair braiding — and his cool math tools for students.(Recorded June 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania. Duration: 16:51.)

NEW: Watch the video, and Read the transcript >>

Not sure how it got killed, but I suspect either a house cat, or attacked by birds. The mockingbirds are particularly aggressive right now since many have eggs to watch over. I got attacked by them on my Friday walk by the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale at NSU. There are quite a few trees on the Blockbuster plaza, and that’s where it happened. What’s the name of that plaza now anyway?

Ring-necked Snakes are found throughout most of the eastern U.S.. These diminutive snakes seldom grow longer than 12 inches. Ring-necked Snakes have smooth scales and a black or dark gray back, whereas the belly is a bright orange/yellow, often with a row of black spots. As the name implies, there is an obvious ring of orange/yellow around its neck. When alarmed or threatened, Ring-necked Snakes coil their tail like a corkscrew. These snakes are fairly secretive and may be found under logs and rocks in moist uplands, where they eat earthworms, slugs, small salamanders and small snakes.

by Henry David Thoreau

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil–to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks–who had a genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return– prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again–if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man–then you are ready for a walk.

HYPERLINK “http://www.transcendentalists.com/1thorea.html”

Only the middle image came out close to what the human eye really perceives. The top image isn’t dark enough. The bottom image has a washed out sky. Anyway, you can at least get an idea of what it is like there.