What is it about mangroves? people tell you there's hardly any left, but I find them everywhere, so much I get lost in them for days.
Before leaving Florida for good, Annika and I chose to meet half way between her base of St Petersburg and my pushing off point, Key West, and that took us canoe camping in Everglades National Park on the west coast of the peninsula.
The drive there introduced me to the unusual mix of cypress swamp forest in fresh water flowing out to coastal mangrove estuaries, which we would soon be exploring by canadian canoe, our camping supplies aboard for 4 days of adventure.
( It also took me across large tracts of Indian reservation land, and the not so great revelation that the common notion of casinos and cheap tobacco outlets as "investments" by the tribes, is in fact true. But there was a heathy mix of tourist operations based around airboats, alligator shows, and feather head-dressed characters with chiefly names offering visitors 'Indigenous" cultural experiences.)
The mix of fresh and salt water provides ideal conditions for paddlers to view alligators, wading birds, dolphins, manatees, and osprey.
While the "trails"are accessible year-round, most paddlers attempt them during the winter months when it is cooler and there are less mosquitos - good for us!
Paddling times vary from two to seven hours depending on winds, tides, paddling speeds, and which trails you choose.
These trails can be difficult for inexperienced paddlers or under certain conditions. Paddling against the tide, fighting a headwind, or being unprepared for the weather or mosquitoes can make for a very strenuous paddle. Well, we chose a longer route for a shorter time, didn't take a compass or GPS, tho they were littering our boats back in their snug harbours. We did take enough water and food to last the distance luckily, as it was hard work, especially out in the Gulf itself where you are more exposed to the conditions.
Our first night was quite special, staying on Sandfly Island due to our late departure, but it meant we had it to ourselves, ( and a few sandflies), and could walk the hour long interpretive trail before setting out the next day. Some would be farmer tried to grow tomatoes there but was driven off by sandflies, drought and hurricanes, doh!
One of the highlights of our trip came early on day two - a large flock of unbelievably white pelicans clustered on a drying shoal and yodelling with their huge floppy pink throats - with the sunlight showing through their skin, it was a sight to behold.
Manatee and alligators were scarce, but herons, cormorants, horseshoe crabs, and Ospreys at every stroke. Even a rabid racoon on a tiny mangrove key, sitting in the water opening mangrove oysters.
The next nights were in the company of other paddlers, and we enjoyed getting to know a group of 6 from way up north who knew their stuff. They'd been in the Everglades for 10 days and keen to get home. Our night with them on the "chickee" , an elevated camping platform, which we presumed were just as necessary to provide somewhere to actually camp in this flooded mangrove wilderness as they were for keeping snakes and alligator out of our beds.
Apart from one anxious "where the Whakaari" when we found ourselves off-trail and dead-ended in a lagoon of herons, and having to retrace our paddle strokes for an hour, we escaped the embarrassment of getting lost ( and the inevitable rescue and questions of why we had no navigational aids)
The light/water play, sunsets, and sensation of gliding though endless interconnecting channels that flow and ebb was all sublime. Less so the moments when another fisherman in his Boston Whaler came by at speed and swamped us.
It was a well earned beer when we finally paddled back into Everglade City (true name, but more like a back water), and went our separate ways -Annika back to save lives in ICU, and me off to swan around the Grand Bahama Banks
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