Jason's Central Florida Kayaking/Camping Blog: Emerson Point Park

Visited 06/25/11

Emerson Point Park is located on the edge of Tampa Bay, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Before coming to this park, we did absolutely zero research. This location came at the request of a friend of ours that didn't even end up making it on the trip, and had never been here before. We were going in completely blind, but decided to make the trip anyway.

We were pleasantly surprised.

Our buddy Blake was meeting us at the park and arrived first, going all the way to the back of the grounds, so that's where we met up with him. On the way back, we passed several nice looking kayak launches. Although we had a great time, I'm sure this park has much to offer that we didn't take advantage of. We'll certainly be going back, at some point.

At the back of the park, there is plenty of parking, a boat launch, and a cool raised platform area that gives you a 360 degree view of the entire coast. However, unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of or from that hill. My bad.

Here are some of the views from the launch. I call it a launch only because they have a loop for your car and trailer but, really, everything here is a launch. Observe...

We had no reason at all for any launch site, though.     When you get to this area, look down the coast and you'll see a trail leading you into a beautiful stretch of woods/coastline.     This is where we decided to set up shop.     Rather than having to fit everything on our 'yaks, we decided to just carry most of our things a couple hundred yards down shore, where we found the little slice of paradise in the pics below.

As I tend to do, I must address the alcohol issue.        When we initially arrived, our buddy Blake was drinking a beer and quickly advised us that he had been informed that the ranger would be none too happy if he were to observe his consumption of said beverage.     We saw no signs prohibiting alcohol, so this was a bit of a disappointment.     In light of these events, we decided it was best that just not drink all day.... mmmph.... HAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!   Sorry.   I tried to keep a straight face while I said that but, apparently, I failed.      We just kept our alcohol in our coolers and stayed our of sight of the ranger.      And this ranger WILL attempt to bother you if you're in the parking lot.   He came around twice in the 10 minutes we were in the lot.    I recommend getting out of there quickly.   He seems to be rather overzealous.

We walked/'yaked to our paradise below and weren't bothered all day.      However, if you choose to post up in this area, you'll definitely have several passers by, as this is still on a main trail.   Everyone we ran into was cool, though.... or at least they were quiet.

Unfortunately, we forgot to stop and get some shrimp, as we had planned. If you've read my other blogs, you're beginning to see a trend now.

We brought a net with us and had no trouble catching some bait fish. However, we caught nothing with those bait fish. If it's any consolation, though, there was a nearby fisherman with a bucket full of live shrimp who was also having zero luck.

After several hours in our little haven, we finally decided to take to the water. We found a couple cool little inlets and coves along the coast.

And a pink Spoonbill.

After our kayaking trip (maybe an hour), we saw some small birds standing knee-deep in the water about 300 yards out. We decided that we wanted to look like Jesus, and made our way out there. We came across quite an eclectic mix of wildlife.