I am partnering with NRDC to paddle my outrigger canoe 1200 miles around Florida and west to New Orleans. My goal is to build support for a Healthy Oceans Act and steps to protect our oceans from global warming and ocean acidification. For those who do not know, I paddle to inform and for those who don't care, I paddle to inspire. I am documenting my journey on this blog during the month-long paddle.You can read more about the paddle, see photos, and take action here. You can also check out my personal website with information about this and other adventures here.

The beauty and wildness of the Nature Coast totally blows my mind. It would be more than a pity, it would be a travesty, if this area saw the type of development that runs rampant through most of Florida. I have seen more birds here than even in the little section of Everglades that I did get to do. The wildness and beauty simply takes your breath away.

The role that big, corporate individuals can play in doing their part to "not mess things up" was also totally obvious to me yesterday paddling from Cedar Key to Steinhatchee. I paddled a part of the Gulf, in the Suwannee area, that I couldn't wait to get out of. The water was brown, as was the foam the air boats kicked up, and huge masses of floating foam balls wended wide paths from East to West. My paddle squeaked in my hands in a very unnatural way. The water just did not look right.

When I questioned Joy about it, she explained that not only is there a paper mill that dumps its effluent in the Withlacoochee River that in turns dumps into the Suwannee which in turn flows into the Gulf, but there is arelarge dairies very close to the Suwannee River and also many septic tanks polluting the river. This was a little disturbing to me, as I had just eaten locally caught clams the night before and not only am I paddling by where a Georgia papermill's effluent ends up and where the sewer plant's waste goes, but I see shellfish harvesting areas all around me. How can a papermill and sewer plant be allowed to risk a food source?

At Cedar Key I was hosted by a network of folks. December and Lee McSherry hosted me at the lovely Gulf Side Motel, where I could look out at my boat and the Gulf, and a reporter, Jim Hoy with the Cedar Key News, treated me to a fantastic dinner at the Island Room. Earlier, at the landing, I was completely surprised to see Barbara and Bill Keller, folks I've known since my "Willingboro" days, or the "old neighbors" as our group is called. I've known them since I was little, and we still get together, or try to, at least once a year. Totally amazing to see them.

Joy also brought along some of her amazing friends who are working with the local government of Cedar Key (population 840) to introduce some environmentally friendly measures, like a recycling program. Tom Deverin and his wife, Pat, are working hard on these fantastic initiatives.

Right now I'm feeling very sorry for myself for having to leave the cutesy little new development I've ever seen. This place has been done right. Paved surfaces are at a minimum, and the homes, all of which are luxurious and none of which are overpowering, blend in perfectly with the native flora and fauna, which the developer obviously took great pains to preserve. The luxurious accomodations are very hard to leave. But then, that's been pretty much my sentiments in the Everglades and the Nature Coast. These are amazing, special, and extremely vital parts of our ocean and coastal ecosystem that need to be preserved and protected for the sake of the Gulf and the ocean.

Kudos to the many folks here devoting their lives to protecting it from the interests that only see short term gain. If we ruin it now, what will be left?