Palm Coast by kayak

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

The little lagoon is right in the middle of town, but from a perch on a small kayak — when a breeze rustles the leaves and drowns out the purr of boat traffic in the nearby canals and the Intracoastal — it doesn’t feel like it.

I had come to the area — and, later, out on a 12-foot kayak — to meet with Meg Goncalves, owner of Tropical Kayaks, a paddling shop and kayak rental near the Palm Coast marina.

The shop serves as a jumping–off point for paddlers exploring the Intracoastal and Palm Coast’s canal system.

On the water, a wild encounter doesn’t require leaving town, Goncalves said. Kayakers see, bobcats, dolphins and wading birds, and have even reported black bears.

“Our entertainment because of the wildlife is incredible,” Goncalves said.

She’s also assisted with some wildlife rescues, helping corral deer that have fallen in the canal, and during one group trip freeing a manatee that trapped in shallow water behind a deadfall in the low tide.

“One day, years ago before GoPros and iPhones, we had a little baby dolphin in he basin — the tiniest little dolphin I’d ever seen,” she said. The dolphin hung around, drawing a crowd on nearby docks, so Goncalves drove out to Staples, bought a cheap video camera, and headed out into the basin to film.

“The mom was in the basin, and she was teaching him to play with the mullet,” she said. “I’m in the kayak, and I can hear her breathing. And he’d pick up a mullet, throw it, zoom to catch it, and then release it unharmed,” she said. “And then when I got back to the dock, I realized I hadn’t turned the camera on properly.” She had no footage.

But the incident is one of the highlights of Goncalves’ watery career — she spent time commercial fishing in Cape Cod, and lived on a 44-foot sailboat before opening Tropical Kayaks — and an illustration in the unexpected ways of local wildlife.

Even Goncalves, though, initially brushed off her clients when they started telling her a monkey was swinging around the trees lining Palm Coast’s canals. “I did not believe our kayakers,” she said. “They’d say, ‘We saw a monkey!’ And I’d say, ‘Oh, yeah, cool.’”

Then it appeared in an acquaintance’s backyard, she said, and paddlers have reported sightings, and taken pictures, ever since.

Goncalves said that despite the labor involved in the job, she has more fun than anyone she knows, and feels kayaking has helped her recuperate from a car accident last year.

“If it wasn’t for the kayaking, I think I would have been much worse off,” she said.

A lot of people paddle for health, she said. “People come back because it’s a need in their life to be healthy and be outside,” she said.

For more information on Tropical Kayaks, call 445-0506 or visit kayakcafe.com.