We had just moved from Gainesville, where my father had been teaching at the University. Our new home was the City of Cocoa on the Indian River, a long, shallow estuarine lagoon that separates the coastal ridge from the Atlantic Ocean and the Barrier Islands. My father had been fortunate enough to gain employment with General Dynamics, working on the Atlas missile at Cape Canaveral. The year was 1956.
I had, of course, loved Gainesville, and had explored virtually every swamp, cypress dome, hammock, spring, creek, prairie, river, lake, and sinkhole in and around the city. Places such as Rattlesnake Creek, Hogtown Creek, Biven’s Arm, Peck’s Hill, Payne’s Prairie, Sugarfoot Swamp, Devil’s Millhopper, and Hale’s Siding became sacred places, with clear water and abundant wildlife. At ten years old, my Gainesville friends and I may have been in some ways as effective field biologists as many who claimed to be professionals, although we did not know this, nor did we care, at the time. Our heroes were Raymond Ditmars, Archie Carr and Ross Allen. We loved observing and collecting the wide variety of reptiles and amphibians indigenous to the area.
Oddly enough, however, despite my love of Gainesville, I did not regret moving to Cocoa. Looking down over the steep hills covered with banana trees, into the clear, shallow water of the Indian River, I did not think of Gainesville. For this place was even more exciting and more magical than the cool, moss covered woods, or the humid, lazy cypress domes of Gainesville. It looked almost as if it were not real, but rather a dream. Life was everywhere. Long schools of finger mullet moved slowly along the shallow water, stopping occasionally to nibble the algae from a strand of manatee grass. Further out I could see more expansive schools of fish, whose smooth consistent motion would be broken by attacks from larger fish. The water surface was smooth and flat and easily gave away any motion underneath by revealing a splash or a swirl. I also spotted dolphin cruising towards the North. They were followed from above by three pelicans that were hoping to pick up the remnants of any feeding activity. I remember how excited I was, the wonderful feeling I had about this place. I could not wait to experience it.
And experience it I did. Over the next ten years, the Indian River was my happiness. I loved nothing more than spending time participating with the life on the River. I believe that the largest number of my most memorable moments came from wade fishing the flats during summer mornings. There was a special excitement in watching a skillfully cast top water lure disappear in an explosion of water, to watch the line streak, and to feel the power of a large Redfish attempting to escape into deeper water, to hold this magnificent animal in my hands and to wonder what it would be like to be a Redfish, moving freely without concern, striving to survive, but totally comfortable within my environment.
I developed, in fact, a very special feeling for all the fish that lived in the River. I think the feeling might be called love, or perhaps more accurately, passionate curiosity.
