Day 5- Hog Key
I didn’t even need to unzip the tent when I woke at 6 a.m. to know I wouldn’t be paddling today. The wind was howling all night long and a thunderstorm passed just north of me about 1 a.m. I’m glad I dodged that, the weather radio was warning of water spouts, 50 mph wind gusts, high surf and rip currents.
I tried twice this morning to make breakfast and send a spot message to Nazan, but was forced back into the tent both times by rain. I’ve spent most of the morning in my tent with my empty coffee cup strategically balanced on my belly to catch the most frequent drips. I think my tent is due for some seam sealer therapy.
In a way it is nice to know that I won’t be going anywhere today, I haven’t taken a day off since I left Madison on the 1st. I just wish that I was stuck in a spot that made better photos. Hog key is nice but I had planned to stay on Highland Beach for two nights because it is an awesome place. But now it looks like my day off will be spent at Hog Key.
4:30 pm- I dozed off this morning in my tent and woke up around noon and the weather had calmed down a great deal. Still in the tent, I switched on the weather radio and the automated computer voice said after the front passed the weather would be “tranquil” for the next few days. She actually used the word tranquil! I let out a little cheer and got up out of the tent. The wind was almost gone and it was appearing to become a nice day. Judging by the water in my canoe it had rained a great deal this morning.
With my optimism rising I thought I’d give paddling a try today after all. Maybe I can make it to Highland Beach and still have my layover day there! I packed camp in record time and shoved off. But as soon as I rounded the corner of the protected bay I was in I quickly realized that this was going to be a very short paddle. The swells kicked up from last night’s storm were still very big and paddling 8 miles with these kinds of waves wouldn’t be that wise. So I pulled back into Hog Key only .6 miles from where I was last night and set up camp again and sent my spot message to Nazan.
I kind of look forward to spending the message every day, even if all it says is my location and that I’m okay. It’s as close as I can get to calling home.
Day 6- Highland Beach
2 p.m.- I’m in paradise! In a hammock stretched between two sable palms looking out at the sun glistening off the Gulf of Mexico. I’m 40 miles from anywhere or anything.
The paddle over here to Highland Beach was on almost mirror smooth water, about a mile away from arriving here, I paddled alongside a pod of 6 or 7 dolphin swimming together. They were about 20 feet away from me at times and either didn’t notice me, or didn’t care that I was there.
My water jugs and food container are full thanks to a resupply by Bill Blanton, a retired Naples Daily News editor who is now a fishing guide out of Everglades City. He ran down water and food for me in his fishing boat this morning. Coincidentally Bill was the editor who assigned me to first canoe the wilderness waterway in 1997 for a special section to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Everglades National Park. It was good to talk to him today, he was the first person I’ve had a conversation with in a week. I’m also glad that someone can send word to Nazan that I’m doing okay out here.
Earlier this morning on the paddle over here I felt the back end of my canoe sink and move the side. When you are in a canoe this much you become very sensitive to any unusual movements. I looked back and the water all around was brownish from silt being stirred up off the bottom. I never heard any slashing at all, just felt the canoe move. I told Bill about it and he theorized it might have been a nurse shark or large stingray. Whatever it was, it was big. It moved a lot of water.
8 p.m.- I had planned on doing a lot of walking here on Highland Beach, the beach is about 2 miles long, but my feet are killing me. Your feet would be the last thing you would think of hurting on a canoe trip, but with having sand all over your feet all day every day it is literally like wearing sandals made out of sandpaper. It tears your feet up pretty good and starts to rub your feet raw in places. I’ve started wearing wool socks with my sandals to protect my feet. I’m glad I’m 40 miles away from civilization, I look pretty dorky with wool socks on at the beach.
I have a picture hanging in my living room taken on Highland Beach from a trip I took in 2001. I was hoping to find the same location today to do a before and after photo but these places change so rapidly I couldn’t find the spot at all. I’ve been looking at the photo for years in my living room, so I would have recognized it it was still here. But the coastline out here is ever changing and eroding so that it was nowhere to be found.
Someday I would love to bring Nazan here to Highland Beach, she would love this place. Tonight the stars are out and the crescent moon is setting into the Gulf of Mexico. This is a wonderful place. Because it is so far from civilization you usually have the place entirely to yourself like I do tonight. I think if Nazan and I were to come out here we might get someone to take us out in a motor boat though. I’m not sure Nazan would like the 6 day round trip it would take to paddle here.
Day 7- Graveyard Creek
Link to Map
When you get to the remote areas in the Everglades halfway between Everglades City and Flamingo all the names get more foreboding, like Shark Point, Lostman’s River, Camp Lonesome and where I’m camped tonight, Graveyard Creek. Unlike some of the names up by Everglades City like Sunday Bay and Picnic Key.
The paddle down to Graveyard Creek was very peaceful and calm, the morning silence was only broken by two F-18 fighter jets flying overhead. There is an active military training area off the Everglades Coast so it is common to hear planes and sonic booms while in the middle of the Everglades. I had to laugh as they flew over me following the coastline from north to south. It probably just took them 5 minutes to travel as far as I will in 11 days.
When I got here to Graveyard Creek I found I wasn’t going to be alone tonight for the first time in 5 days. There are 4 fisherman from Orlando and a guy sailing his small sailboat to Central America.
Tonight around the campfire was a scene that I’m sure has never happened before and never will again. A architect, a cook, an owner of a lawn company and an accountant from Orlando, a photographer from Wisconsin sat around a campfire eating boiled cabbage and venison chili listening to a guy who is sailing to Central America, play Neil Young songs on his accordion. It certainly was a night to remember and a lot more social than I’ve had so far on this trip. I do have to say the fisherman had a brilliant idea, invite a cook along. Nathan’s food was excellent!
I camped here before during the trip in 1997 for the Naples Daily News as Ted Kircher and I canoed the Wilderness Waterway for the special section the paper did for the 50th anniversary of Everglades National Park. This afternoon I ate the one Power Bar I brought with me in memory of that trip Ted and I undertook. When Ted and I did this same trip (on different route) it was the first time either of us had done a major wilderness outing. All we packed for food was freeze dried camping food and Power Bars I bought at Sports Authority. To this day I have never been able to eat either of them, today was the first Power Bar I’ve eaten since then. Time has actually healed my taste a bit, it wasn’t that bad. Freeze dried camping food on the other hand, I’ll go to my grave without having another one of those meals. I have to say this trip I’ve been doing much better on food. I’ve been enjoying a lot of pasta dishes and fry breads. I’ve been eating pretty good.
This campsite is just kind of a stopping point, a small patch of higher land in a long stretch of shore with no beaches. It’s not necessarily a pretty place so there wasn’t much to shoot tonight. I did shoot a photo in 1997 that we ran with the story in the Naples Daily News of a large black mangrove in the mouth of the creek right by the camp that made a nice photo at sunrise. Of course that tree is gone now and the camp looks nothing like it did 13 years ago. Another example of the ever changing coastline out here.
