Paddlers: imagine embarking on Biscayne Bay on a busy winter weekend morning, winding your kayak through narrow mangrove tunnels and admiring a bustling backcountry rookery without encountering a single powerboat.

It’s no dream; it’s a nine-mile loop trail around the historic, shallow Jones Lagoon — hidden in plain sight in Biscayne National Park. And park rangers will conduct daylong, guided kayak tours there beginning Saturday [Jan. 7] through April.

I went on a preview paddle Monday in a group of 13 kayakers — mostly park rangers, staffers, boosters and volunteers — that made me certain these tours will fill up quickly even at $89 per person. The best way to sum up the experience is, if you were blindfolded until you entered Jones Lagoon, you would look around and swear you were in the remotest watery wilds of the Ten Thousand Islands.

The trip began at park headquarters in Homestead where the group boarded a powerboat for a ride across the bay to the ranger station at Adams Key. At Adams Key, we got sea kayaks, paddles and life jackets, then crossed Caesar Creek together, landing at Porgy Key.

Having never walked around on the island before (despite several hundred visits to Biscayne Bay), I was startled to see the rundown remains of the pioneer Jones family homestead.

“You are standing on sacred ground,” park volunteer Jim White told the group. “It is a tribute to the human spirit to survive here.”

White briefly recounted the Jones family history: how Israel Lafayette “Parson” Jones, a farm laborer and stevedore from North Carolina, bought Porgy Key in the 1890s, cleared the land by hand, and was so successful at growing pineapples and limes that he became one of the first African American millionaires in the South. Jones’ sons Arthur and Lancelot carried on the family business and also became fishing guides, escorting several U.S. presidents to catch bonefish during their stays at the private Coco Lobo Fishing Club — then located on Adams Key.

The Joneses sold their land to the National Park Service in 1970 to preserve it from development following a bitter battle waged by developers to incorporate the barrier islands of Biscayne Bay into a city called Islandia. The bid to create Islandia led to the establishment of Biscayne National Park in 1980. Lancelot died in 1997 at age 99 after spending most of his latter years on the family homestead.

After leaving Porgy Key, the kayaking group headed south across a shoal to skirt the west side of Totten Key, then entered narrow, mangrove-lined Crane Creek.

Portions of the watercourse were so narrow that we broke down our double paddles and used one half to wind between the spreading prop roots of red mangroves. Eventually, these tangled tunnels so hemmed us in that we laid down the half-paddles and propelled our kayaks hand-over-hand on the roots. But it wasn’t very difficult, and fortunately, no bloodthirsty swamp angels attacked us. The surroundings reminded me of a natural cathedral with a sun-shielding tree canopy and a watery floor.

We continued south, rounding Little Totten Key, then headed north along Old Rhodes Key until it opened into the calm, shallow enclosure of Jones Lagoon. We stopped and had lunch, admiring frisky blue crabs and snowflake-shaped Cassiopeia jellyfish on the bottom.

After lunch, we got back in our kayaks and paddled north toward a large stand of mangroves that turned out to be a highlight of the trip.

It was a rookery where numerous roseate spoonbills, snowy egrets, cormorants and anhingas roosted, squawked and fluttered around, seemingly oblivious to our presence.

Park ranger Moira Reagan urged everyone to keep at least 500 feet back, so as not to scare the birds and ruin the experience. Everyone complied, and Mother Nature’s New Year Pageant continued uninterrupted.

Paddler Miguel Caridad was impressed.

“It increased by 100 percent the number of roseate spoonbills I’ve seen,” Caridad said.

The group lingered at the rookery for about a half-hour, then reluctantly made its way north through Hurricane Creek out to Caesar Creek and back to Adams Key.

It was a bit jarring to hear and see powerboats running up and down Caesar Creek. But what was truly remarkable was to realize that we had literally been surrounded by them for most of the day and it was as though they were never there at all.