Snowbirds, Gators, The Milky Way, & Other Endangered Species

 One thing about living with only a small tin can separating your sleeping head from the elements is that we get the joy (and pain) of being in touch with what’s going on around us.  It has always been going on, we just weren’t paying as much attention while living in the sensory deprivation tank of a modern, well-insulated home or office.  Since we left Boone in September we have vividly been paying attention to sunrises, sunsets, weather, and moon cycles.  

We remember fondly where we were and what we were doing during each full moon.  We spent the Christmas week moon with The Hutchisons on St. George Island, Florida.  While it wasn’t my family’s first Christmas outside of the Midwest, it was their first “destination” Christmas to a place unknown. We are proud of them for coming such a long way to get together.  It was memorable and well worth the time.  Our folks live in a lovely area in northern Michigan, and winter is one of the best times to visit, but we’d been talking about going somewhere else and having a different kind of tradition for a long time.  We all met in Tallahassee and drove down to our rental for the week just outside of Appalachicola.   

We  walked on the beach, ate, I swam and kayaked, ate, read, ate, cycled, ate, played games, ate, captured the beauty of the area in photos, and ate some more.  Oh, and we drank a lot of wine and beer as well.  It was a great gluttonous gathering.  Thank god, mom still kept some traditions alive by brining the Chex Mix and sugar cookies. 

After parting ways with the family, Shari and I really began exploring the beauty of the gulf-coast of Florida in our own way.  We spent a couple of nights at the State Park on St. George Island -- seeing the island in its more natural state.  Mother Nature put on a spectacular light show with full moon rises, sunsets and sunrises all made more dramatic with the backdrop of the Long Leaf Pine canopy which serves as a home for bald eagle, bard owl, osprey and other raptors.  The park is home to a multitude of marsh, shore, and wading birds.  

After seeing thousands of such birds up and down the coast, we are now officially bird nerds and our Peterson Field Guide is only slightly less read than our Rand-McNally road atlas.  Remember...we’re GPS-free and loving it!  We made our way down the coast to the Everglades area stopping as we wanted and visiting some stunningly beautiful state parks in 5 days.  I have been going somewhere in Florida too many times to count, while this was Shari’s first visit (Californians simply don’t go to Florida much).  Driving along any of the major interstates, it is hard to distinguish one mile from the next, because “you’re just trying to get there” -- to Boca Raton, Venice, Flamingo Bay, wherever.  While these are lovely destinations in their own right, one has no regard for anything in between point A and B, when they were only marked out in gas station stops and potty breaks. 

While on the coast we saw manatees for the first time in their fresh-water, winter homes, as well as another migrating species in its winter plumage.  This one walks upright and asks a lot of questions about our renovated 1957 camper.  This is no new phenomenon, actually, we can’t seem to go anywhere -- gas stations, grocery stores, or campgrounds -- without attracting the attention of anyone born before 1962.  Our lil’ Hamlet is a rolling conversation piece, something of a nostalgia trip for this particular bird who grew up with these aluminum vacation cottages clogging up the interstate from Cape Cod to Yosemite.   

The snowbirds of North America have taken up residence in the state parks, RV resorts, campgrounds, and anywhere else that has a full hook-up in southern Florida.  In this environment we again seem like strangers in a strange land.  Like they, we move around the country with our home in tow; but, the size of our shell is dwarfed by most modern campers and RV’s.  Our stops at the same watering holes as these updated versions seem to be significantly shorter.  We breeze into a place, set up and depart in a few days – spending most of that time outside the campground, while they may spend a whole season perched in camp site 15.   Perhaps in 25 years we’ll be occupying that space, but until then there’s still too much road to be explored. 

I’ve been trying to talk Shari into a Florida Everglades paddle trip for years.  When we left on this adventure, the Everglades were a destination that I wanted to eventually, but definitely, reach. Being new to sea kayaking and still overcoming a life-long fear of the ocean, Shari was less enthused.  As we meandered our way down the coast, we finally settled on a 4 day plan to camp out on an island with good sunset potential and a sea breeze strong enough to keep the bugs at bay.  Two things, above all others, loomed in her mind:  1.) proximity to alligators (a species unknown to Californians); and 2.) tenaciously biting insects.  The former was a fear mostly brought on by the TV/movie industry and the latter was drawn out from personal experience.  Shari has a localized allergic reaction to mosquitoes like no other.   Nobody wants to be bitten up by anything, mosquitoes included; however venturing out into beautiful remote areas can expose a person to these biters – it’s the price we pay for paradise.  While some folks get an itchy bump for a day or two, she responds with a silver dollar sized welt red, hot, and angry for about a week and a half.  It’s like the mosquitoes mark her as one of their own and are trying to give her the requisite number of bites that will inevitably turn her into their queen.  It is unpleasant to witness, and I’m sure nothing compared to experiencing it.  

But for the moment let’s return to the primal fear of paddling in this part of the world for Shari.  Alligators are nearly as common in south Florida as flip flops on a college campus.  However, they are a shy, lazy and placid animal who wants nothing to do with humans and human activity, contrary to their reputation as senseless killers.   When you paddle close to an area they occupy, they typically sink silently out of sight and move as far away as possible.  We simply aren’t food to them, and unless you are actively provoking them with pointy sticks, or greased up with the Coronel’s 11 herbs and spices, they will not bother you.  On 6 trips to the south Everglades with students, I have only seen a few in the open water and it has always been at a distance.  They prefer the fresh water of the inland sloughs to the salt water of the open gulf.  I repeatedly assured Shari of this as we prepared to travel through the mangroves and marshes of the 10,000 Islands Wilderness Preserve adjacent to the northern end of Everglades National Park.  Shari didn’t believe me for a minute, but she put on her game face and out we went.  

Would you believe that within no less than an hour after leaving the dock, we paddled right over a gator?  It was probably the only damn gator in the entire north end of the park!  We were making our way through a well-traveled channel, lots of boats going through here, to the outer islands, when Shari noticed something ahead of me.  I passed over the spot, thinking it would be well gone – whatever it was.  I looked back as Shari came through, only to see her boat suddenly rise 6 inches out of the water as if lifted by a wave.  The huge splash and disturbance in the water to her right side could only mean two things, it was large and startled.  She stayed upright, thank goodness, and paddled like a woman possessed.  Those of you who know Gareth’s rules for paddling #4 should be smiling now.*  She screamed her head off as she did this, but she didn’t panic and kept moving away from what she knew was going to eat her whole.   The animal was gone, and Shari was okay so all I could think was, “are you f’ing kidding me?”   How is it that her #1 fear, which everyone who has spent some time here would have put in the “highly unlikely” category, came to pass in the very first hour?  We nearly turned around and called it a trip except we would have had to run that same gator gauntlet again to get home.  So, we kept at it to our destination of Lulu Key.  Along the way, every time an animal broke the surface, Shari thought it was another gator, but luckily for us it turned out to be dolphins.  We saw about 15 on our way out, which was more than I’d seen before; so really, what the heck to do I know?

Having calmed down from the gator encounter, we were able to enjoy the beach campsite we selected and had to ourselves.  We enjoyed it so much we hung out there for the next 3 nights.  In that time we began to get in tune with the small key’s rhythm of life.  The way the dolphin heard the fish into a small bunch before crashing through to feed, the way the pelicans chase the mullet into the shallows to increase their odds of catching one, and the way the larger fish do the same thing to the millions of small fry which inhabit the shallow water that hugs the beach.  The low tide which stretched out about 50 yards off shore exposed a story of the thriving ecosystem which lies beneath the high tide line.  The same line which nearly threatened our tent.  I’ve done more paddling miles here before, but I don’t think I’ve taken as much time to learn and get to know this place.  When I came here the first time my priorities were navigation, planning, group management, and risk management.  This time I could simply be here and stay in the moment. 

 

These moments were occasionally interrupted by the stinging of the sand gnat, or no see-ums, or midgies – whatever you want to call them.  If you look at these bugs under a microscope you will find two things: wings and teeth.  They cannot be seen, heard, or felt until their tiny bite inflicts a level of pain so disproportionate to their body size that it cancels out all logical conclusions of cause and effect.  These fuckers are impressive.  The price of paradise, I suppose.  By the second day we concluded that the only way to deal with them is to simply suit up.  Bug spray? Bah…they eat bug spray for breakfast!  The Original Bug Shirt on the other hand is where we with opposable thumbs get the upper hand.  Fortunately, the itch and welt caused by these little blood suckers doesn’t swell too badly even in my bride’s system, which is no small miracle. 

When we left the glades, I was sorry to go but glad to have shared some amazing days and moments on the beach with Shari.  After all the spring breaks I came down here with students, we got the chance to see why it is so special…together.  Yeah, the bugs can be bad there, especially this year with its warmer weather, but if there’s a breeze blowing they cannot leave their cover and they only come out in the morning before the sun is fully up and at sunset.  There is a time for all things in the glades, and if you enjoy it while it’s beautiful, it can be completely magical. 

We spent a great day with Jen Grady, a former student of mine at Outdoor Programs, who now works for the North Carolina Outward Bound School in Everglades City.  We did laundry together, mucked about Naples with her and her beau, Bernie, (awesome kid BTW – nice score Jen!) and had dinner at the base camp on Sunset Island.  After having so many of my students come through these doors, it was a very special moment to participate hand-in-hand in the chow circle prior to dinner and feel connected to that special place. 

But the Everglades are so much more than just a program area, or a national park, or a collection of islands along the outer coast.  It is (or was) the entirety of south Florida, before things were drained for human development and agribusiness.   If it weren’t for the national park, and those who made it happen, there would be agricultural fields all the way down to Cape Sable, and not a blade of saw grass would remain.   We visited Big Cypress National Preserve, Shark Valley Everglades Visitors Center, and Key Biscayne National Park, all areas I’d never been to before, despite my numerous visits.  Since we were finally in a national park during its busy season, we got to attend ranger-led programs in the park.  Every other park we’d visited on this expedition was either mid-week or off-season and no scheduled programs.  We made use of them, bagging about 10 hours toward our NC Environmental Education Certification.  One of the most unique programs we attended was a night-time, new moon bike ride to the Shark Valley observation tower.   We watched the sun go down and the stars come out while listening to the chirps and squawks of about 2000 nesting, white ibises.  The stars were bright, but even a view as remote as this was heavily impacted by the lights of Miami and Dade County.  One of our most endangered natural resources is the night sky.  Within 20 years, it is predicted that we, on the east coast, will no longer be able to see with the naked eye the beauty of the Milky Way due to light pollution. 

After 12 days and 4 key-lime and passion fruit shakes at “Robert is Here,” we finally turned our attention northward and boogied our way back up, on the interstate this time, to our next WWOOF farm destination in Tallahasee.  

*Gareth's Rules for Paddling & Life
1. Be cool always.
2. Never get separated from your gear.
3. Shit happens.
4. When shit happens, paddle like shit!