Cedar Key Museum State Park and Suwannee River Boat Tour

Posted from Clermont, FL   (Click on Pics to Enlarge)

I'm still playing catch-up with our blog postings.  As I looked back at our pictures, I didn't realize how many fun things we had a chance to do while visiting Cedar Key, FL.

On one particular day we wandered over to the Cedar Key Museum State Park. Remember, Cedar Key is geographically pretty small, so it's easy to get everywhere in just a few minutes.

The State Park is pretty small compared to other Florida State Parks and it mainly houses articles and documents collected over time by St. Clair Whitman. Mr. Whitman had a very nice collection of Florida mollusks, as well.

Mr. Whitman's house is on display at the museum. After his death, the property on which the house sat was sold and the house was due to be demolished.  The people of Cedar Key banded together and moved the house to the present site in 1990.  Since that time, it has been restored to the 1920's and 1930's period.

Parlor

There was literally no one at the museum on the day of our visit. Here's a few pictures of the inside of the Whitman House.

Kitchen

Cedar Key's first museum

The museum can be fully visited in about an hour and the price is right at $2 per person.
To view more pictures about the Cedar Key Museum State Park visit my Google+ Album.

On another day we signed up to take a boat tour from Cedar Key to the Suwannee River.  We decided to use Tidewater Tours as online recommendations looked pretty good.  Here's the description from the Tidewater Tours website:

The Suwannee River Tour travels northward along the shallow coastline for approximately 13 miles before entering the world famous Suwannee River.  At this point the ecosystem changes rapidly from a primarily salt water/estuarine environment to a primarily fresh water river/swamp ecosystem.  The route then extends approximately six miles up the river, including excursions into some seemingly enchanted waterways which narrow and run off the main channel.  Plant and animal sightings vary according to the season.  The shallow, near-shore route to the Suwannee River is tide dependant and not always available.  This tour takes approximately 3-to-4 hours.  The cost is $45.00 + tax per person.

We are generally fans of boat tours, but we left somewhat disappointed in this one. It began ok, but engine troubles made for a long, slow trip up to, and back from, the Suwannee River. I belief the entire tour was about 5 1/2 hours by the time we finished.

Fortunately, it was a beautiful day. Here we are leaving from the marina at Cedar Key.

These guys are everywhere in this area. I guess he's not too superstitious about the channel marker number. 

After a lengthy ride to the mouth of the Suwannee River we finally saw a few osprey nests.

We took on fuel at Miller's Marina near the little town of Suwannee.  There were no snacks or drinks onboard, so folks were anxious to see what what available in the little store.  Answer: not much!

This smart couple was prepared and brought along their own little cooler. They could have paid for their tour had they decided to sell a few of their items.

Here's our little group preparing to shove off and head up some of the small tributaries leading into the Suwannee River.

Once you get into the smaller branches of the river it is very quiet and serene.  The entire area is protected, so no commercial or residential development will destroy this fragile area (at least for now).

We did run across this group who were having a nice day of paddle boarding (until we showed up, that is).

Don't let me give you the impression that we didn't enjoy the tour, however.  It turned out to be much longer than anticipated, but that was due to engine problems with the boat. Certainly the scenery was beautiful!

To view more pictures about the Suwannee River tour visit my Google+ Album.

Just one more blog dealing with our Cedar Key visit.  That involved kayaking over to Atsena Otie Key, but I'll save that for the next blog.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!