Backyard tours offer different adventure

Backyard kayak tours in Florida can be secluded 'mini-vacations.'
By SUSAN COCKING
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- Since 1996, a little-known tour company out of Palm Beach County has conducted paddling trips, bicycle hikes, garden tours, and other excursions for large corporate groups from out of town.
VisitPalmBeach.com frequently was hired by the local convention and visitors bureau and by Florida's tourism arm, Visit Florida, to acquaint visitors and travel agents with the region's off-the-beaten track offerings. The average local resident probably had never heard of the company.
But as its outdoor tours became larger and more visible, VisitPalmBeach.com's under-the-radar status got busted -- by the locals. So, now the company has opened its tours to the public.
"We'd be out on these trips and the public would see us and they would say, 'Where do we sign up?'" VisitPalmBeach.com partner Brian Marozzi said. "We'd say, 'Sorry -- this is a private tour.' Then, we were like, 'We should do this.'"
This fall, partnering with Boca Raton's Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and other not-for-profit facilities, VisitPalmBeach.com began advertising kayak and bicycle trips showcasing local parks and waterways.
The company also offers an introduction-to-kayaking class for beginners.
"We have a decent following of people who go on these trips," Marozzi said. "We're going to start doing more stuff for the local people."
Scenic surprise
A kayak tour one Saturday out of Boca Raton's James B. Rutherford Park proved a pleasant surprise for the handful of locals who signed up.
Marozzi and partner Paul Aleskovski launched the tour in a scenic mangrove tunnel located just steps behind a busy strip shopping center on U.S. 1. Despite blustery winds and on-and-off showers, the thick red mangrove canopy shielded the group from getting drenched.
The paddlers explored a network of narrow loop trails just west of the Intracoastal Waterway, some of which were blocked by deadfalls from recent hurricanes.
"This just adds to the adventure," Marozzi chuckled as he made a three-point turnaround at one fallen tree.
The group came to one of several perpendicular trails leading to the ICW, and decided to paddle across the open waterway.
Marozzi pointed out that the paddlers had already visited two city parks -- Rutherford and Lake Wyman -- before leaving the mangrove forest.
Waiting for powerboats to pass by, Aleskovski -- a former river guide in the Adirondacks paddling a fiberglass whitewater craft -- demonstrated an Eskimo roll -- a self-rescue technique to right an overturned boat. The group was impressed but elected to stay in their sea kayaks.
On the other side of the ICW was Red Reef Park, connected by boardwalk to Gumbo Limbo. The kayakers headed into a narrow, mangrove-lined cove and followed it to a dead-end. They paddled back out and headed north, sticking close to the shoreline where they spotted soaring pelicans, a cheeping osprey, and a couple of tri-color herons perched in the trees.
After waiting for more powerboats, they crossed back west to Rutherford Park and made a few more circuits through the thick canopy, spying a fat raccoon, schooling mullet and a host of skittering mangrove crabs.
'It's wonderful'
Back at the put-in, Rita Gourd and JoAnn Behrens, 25-year-residents of neighboring Delray Beach who kayak together frequently, said they'd take the tour again "in a heartbeat."
"I had no idea this was here," Behrens said.
Added Gourd: "We didn't have to drive 15 minutes from her house to get here. I love it. Seeing the trees, the birds, the fish up close, quietly. ..."
Finished Behrens: "It's wonderful!"
Marozzi and Aleskovski seemed glad the group had a good time, and joked that escorting only four people on a kayak trip was like taking a vacation.
Marozzi, a former concierge at Palm Beach's posh Breakers resort, said they once led 80 IBM representatives on a paddle from Spanish River Park to the Boca Raton Resort. Without incident.
He figures locals will get just as much -- if not more -- out of his company's tours as vacationers do.
Said Marozzi: "People will start noticing there are mini-vacations in their own back yard."