Paddling in the Everglades
by Jay Hanks
Michigan residents do not get the opportunity to paddle in Florida very often for obvious reasons. However, the winter months bring out cabin fever in all of us, and even though I do winter paddling in Michigan, it just isn’t the same. Fortunately, winter is the optimum paddling season in the Everglades and so I finally set aside the time and planned a trip from Everglades City to Flamingo in the 10,000 Islands National Park.
It takes about a week to paddle across the lower tip of Florida through the Wilderness Waterway inside the Park. All sorts of challenges confronted us that required advance preparation. Florida is no place to just “wing it” when it comes to a canoe or kayak trip. First, there is no fresh water available during the entire trip so you have to pack in all of your water requirements for a minimum of seven days. Water is a condition that I have never had to think twice about in the past other than maybe making sure I carry iodine tablets or a water filter. Now I had to lug in all I would need, but you can’t practice overkill here because water gets heavy fast and who wants to carry all of that extra weight?
The next issue that is different from north woods paddling is navigation. The Everglades are essentially a marine environment with no natural dry land. Occasional hummocks or man-made “chickees” to put your tent on are all there is. The rest is thousands and thousands of mangroves, which appear as islands but certainly are not. The maps en route are actually vegetation maps, not topographical features. Everything is at the horizon and one mangrove looks just like another. Fortunately, the Park Service has numbered posts most of the way to keep you on the right track but we still got turned around a few times.
The other navigational issue was the tides. When was the last time you went down a river that reversed its direction twice a day? Or the water disappeared entirely? In the Everglades, we had to carry tide charts to gauge the time that the tide would ebb and flow so that we could travel on our route without wasting energy working against the current.
The rest of backcountry living was pretty much the same as a north woods trip regarding tents, sleeping bags, food and gear. It was a little odd walking around in shorts and a t-shirt in January, and putting sunscreen on to keep from getting too sunburned, but we got used to it very quickly. Bugs are fairly mild this time of the year as this is the dry season for Florida, but there are always a few around.
We had an alligator hanging around our camp one night that someone must have fed in the past because he looked hungry. All of us slept a little lighter than usual that night since essentially nothing would have stopped him from crawling out of the water and having a little paddler snack. However, “Wally Gator” minded his manners and shed a tear when we left in the morning without giving him anything to eat. The rest of the day we saw a lot more alligators enjoying the Florida sun just like us.
I had a small four-foot long shark swim right up to my canoe when we traveled along the Gulf of Mexico for a short time. I tell you, I was on the wrong end of the food chain because he certainly was NOT afraid of me. I whacked him with my canoe paddle but he only swam over to another canoe to check it out. I made sure my fingers were a little higher up on the paddle shaft the rest of the day.
The dolphins swimming around the canoes and kayaks were the neatest things, and we saw them many times. They are strong, fast swimmers and very curious about us. They are like miniature submarines coming up out of nowhere and then back down again. We almost always saw them in pairs or threes, which shows that they are very sociable animals.
I would certainly do the Everglades again someday, and the routes are endlessly varied. However, it is not for the beginner as there is absolutely no one checking up on you. Considering the proximity to urban areas such as Miami it is astonishing to realize just how alone we were out there. Many people go around the Everglades their entire lives without ever venturing into its mysterious interior. If you are up to the trip you should go, as the entire region of Southwest Florida is an endangered natural area that could easily disappear in our lifetimes.
Trip Itinerary
Day 1: Everglades City to Lopez River, 9 miles
Day 2: Lopez River to Darwin’s Place, 13 miles
Day 3: Darwin’s Place to Willy Willy, 18 miles
Day 4: Willy Willy to Broad River, 9 miles
Day 5: Broad River to Graveyard Creek, 11 miles
Day 6: Graveyard Creek to Joe River Chickee, 9 miles
Day 7: Joe River to Flamingo, 18 miles
Total: 90 miles in 7 days
Learn how to make a kayak cart.
Copyright 2004-2009 by Jay Hanks. All rights reserved. No material on this site may be copied or published electronically or in print without written permission of the author.