By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
<— Previous in Everglades Shakedown
Start: Chokoloskee.
Finish: Darwin’s Place.
Distance: About 21 nautical miles.
Paddling time: Roughly 8 hours; average pace 2.6 knots.
Stop time: Roughly 2 hours (30 minutes lunch plus a 90-minute stop at Everglades City to obtain permits).
Day 1
The first morning at our campground in Chokoloskee
We spent the night before at Chokoloskee Island Park and Marina, a delightful campground right on the waterfront at Chokoloskee, the last outpost of civilization before entering the Everglades. It felt a bit strange to be camping in the relative comfort of an RV park, with running water, toilets, even showers! But we figured—rightly—that we’d get plenty of backwoods experience in the trip to come.
We arrived at the campground, dropped off by car, right around sunset, just in time for a perfect test of our nighttime organizational abilities. We were gratified to discover that everything went smoothly—setting up camp in the dark and even putting together the Red Herring, which required extensive fiddling with its jury-rigged frame (how it got that way is another story…). After a tasty Mountain House freeze-dried dinner, we slept well under the stars. The campground, though almost completely full for the holidays, was wonderfully quiet.
The next morning, we loaded the boats—including with the all-important supply of water. Vlad had brought all our Platypus water bags, and we were curious to see how much we could fit, and how far that would take us. (We worked out afterward that we loaded about 50 liters, or 13 gallons, of water, weighing about 110 lbs. No wonder we could sometimes hardly drag the boats up the beach!)
Then it was time to launch!
Ready to launch!
One problem: The campground features a kayak-friendly boat launch, and there was a bit of a traffic jam: a group of kayak fishermen heading back home after an early morning on the water. They were quite friendly, though, and we shared space equitably.
A more serious problem: while getting into my boat, I managed to slice my finger on some oyster shells. It was a small cut—just a half-inch or so—but it could potentially interfere with my grip. It didn’t hurt, though, so I foolishly decided to skip the Neosporin-and-bandage routine. Mistake, as it turned out.
Our route first took us almost three miles north to the Everglades National Park Visitor Center in Everglades City, where we had to check in to get the necessary permits to paddle through, and camp in, the park, before heading south for the trip proper. With a brisk tailwind, we made excellent time to Everglades City, and I delighted in the handling of my yellow Explorer, obtained from the estimable Sweetwater Kayaks in St. Petersburg. I promptly dubbed it “Golden Boy” (later amended to “Golden Pony Boy” after a local brew).
Mud at the Visitor Center beach at Everglades City
We’d been warned that the beach at Everglades City was a bit muddy. It was, but fortunately we arrived at fairly high tide, so we didn’t have to walk far in the mud. I tied the boats to some mangroves (you can never be too careful!). Then as we headed inland I caught sight of a couple of figures—a man and a woman—dressed identically in Army-green T-shirts and black pants. The woman was wheeling a loaded barrow, and I took them for park rangers.
But Vlad stopped and said to the man, “I know you! We’re friends on Facebook!”
Happy meeting at Everglades City: Doi Nomazi pack their U-boat
Huh?
Turns out the couple was Doi Nomazi (“Two Nomads”), a well-known Romanian husband-and-wife adventure team. Amazingly, they too are based in New York, although we’d never met before. Like us, they were on a kayak expedition in the Everglades over the holidays—but they were sailing, rather than merely paddling, their black U-boat, a double Long Haul folding kayak. We introduced ourselves, chatted a bit, and agreed to connect after our respective adventures. A positive omen for the trip.
Getting permits turned out to be surprisingly painless. We’d been warned several times that campsites fill up, particularly in the busy season—and Christmas week was the busiest of the year. But to our surprise and relief, we had a choice of sites. The biggest challenge was figuring out how far we thought we’d go on each leg of the journey. We also needed to decide how much of the trip we’d spend “inside” (among the mangroves) vs. “outside” (along the open coast).
The benefit of taking the coastal route for the entire trip was that there were plenty of camping options along the Gulf beaches. But it had two drawbacks: first, it wouldn’t allow us to experience much of the “real” Everglades, and second, if a storm blew up, we might have difficulty, both paddling on the open water and landing through surf.
So we decided to travel inside at first, then come out and follow the coast. For our stint among the mangroves, we decided that Darwin’s Place, which looked to be around 18 miles away, was a good first stop.
Armed with the permits, we set off…
Into the Everglades!
… right into the wind.
The frisky tailwind that had seemed so helpful was now a fairly brisk headwind, and I was dismayed to see our pace dropping to about 2.5 knots. I did some quick mental calculations—at this pace, it would take us over 7 hours to reach our campsite. Since it was about 12:30 PM by now, and sundown was around 6 PM, that meant we’d have to find the campsite, in the labyrinth of the mangroves, after dark.
I pushed the thought away. Maybe the wind would ease up, or we’d find shelter from it among the mangroves. And wouldn’t we get some helpful current at some point?
In the Lopez River
The next couple of hours were a long slog against the wind, with no current. Bank after bank of green mangroves slid by against the blue sky.
After a while, we decided to stop for lunch at the Lopez River campground. From the water, it was a lovely campsite, complete with a picnic table, and we anticipated a pleasant (if brief) lunch.
Wrong!
No sooner had we disembarked than we were attacked by clouds of mosquitoes, followed by swarms of midges (no-see-ums). It was so bad we gave up in what seemed like no more than a minute, retreated to our boats, and ate on the water where the cool breeze kept the midges away.
Driven off by bugs, we lunch on the water
Insects–1, Vlad and Johna–0. Little did we know this was just the first round!
Then we started to paddle seriously. The landscape stayed the same—mangroves, water, sky.
Afternoon sunshine on the black water
Islands in the bay
Hours slipped by, and the sun dipped down towards the horizon. We still had several miles to go to our campground, and I resigned myself to the notion of a night paddle.
Late afternoon silver
Last of the sunset in Huston Bay
We press on through the dusk
The only two lights for miles
Surprisingly, it wasn’t difficult. At that point we were following the Wilderness Waterway, which featured clear markers that we could see in the glow of our headlamps. In addition, the Waterway was marked on our GPS maps, so we had no trouble following the trail.
And the stars were brilliant! We couldn’t stop looking at them—or commenting on how many there were. The phrase “the stars like dust” kept coming up. We’d both heard it, but we’d imagined it was a poetic metaphor. Not so—the sky was literally lit with them.
We paddled along in the darkness for another hour or so, until we came to Darwin’s Place. Squinting in the beams of our headlamps, we saw the campsite was already occupied—there was a motorboat, a couple of tents off to the right, and the picnic tables were piled high. There were no people visible, though we heard some noises from one of the tents. We surmised that our fellow campers were fishermen who planned an early start.
But there was plenty of room on the left side, so keeping as quiet as possible, we landed, set up the tent, and cooked dinner. The site was blessedly (mostly) bug-free—which we really appreciated. (The bugs are at their worst at dusk, and we’d arrived past the peak.)
We settled into the tent, warm and drowsy. The stars sent a soft light into the tent. And there were some soft barking noises: “Woof, woof”.
… Wait a second? Dogs? I couldn’t imagine what was making those noises. And I wouldn’t find out until the morning.
Here are more photos from Day 1 (click on any photo to start slideshow):
Even more photos are here.
Next in Everglades Shakedown —>
Vladimir Brezina (RIP) 
Johna Till Johnson
Wind Against Current 
Pingback: Everglades Shakedown: Challenges and Lessons Learned | Wind Against Current
Pingback: Shakedown Kayak Expedition Through the Florida Everglades: Overview | Wind Against Current
Oh the misery of the bugs. Wonderful photos from your long day!
LikeLike
Thank you, and thanks for posting! And as for the bugs–as the song goes, “We’ve only just begun….” :-)
LikeLike
Isaac Asimov, one of the few truly wonderful science fiction writers of all times, in the days when it really WAS science fiction. “The Stars Like Dust” is part of a sprawling series about empires and galaxies.
LikeLike
Ah, M.R., another SF fan–yay! Thanks for reading, and catching that allusion!
The Asimov book was part of my parents’ library as I grew up, though rather improbably (for someone who later published in the genre) I have not yet read it.
Discussing the book’s title led Vlad to observe that one of the open questions of science is why the night sky is black, not white. If there are an infinite (or virtually infinite) number of stars separated by nothing but vacuum, why doesn’t the light from all those stars light up the sky? Nobody’s quite sure, but the current working hypothesis is that the light simply hasn’t reached us yet.
Someone recently asked what we think about during the long hours of paddling–that gives you an idea!
Thanks again for reading, and posting.
LikeLike
And here I thought I was the last of ’em! – how wonderful that there are people like you guys around, Johna!
LikeLike
Olbers’ Paradox: Dark sky at night conflicts with the assumption of a static and infinitely old universe with an infinite number of stars randomly distributed—so at least one of those assumptions must be wrong.
Darkness at Night: A Riddle of the Universe by Edward Harrison is an extremely readable book describing the problem and the various solutions that were proposed to it through the centuries.
LikeLike
What an interesting pair you are. You could easily go floating (sorry!) down the river and think of nothing but dinner. But no, you actually occupy your brains and discuss Big Questions. C’mon Downunder!
LikeLike
Well, when you know that dinner is going to be a bit of cheese and some mysterious freeze-dried substance, you want to think about it as little as possible ;-)
Downunder? One of these days…
LikeLike
It was a really pleasant surprise to meet you, guys… :) We are vrry happy that you enjoyed paddling that unique slice of Paradise. Beautiful images. See you in NYC.
LikeLike
Thanks, and likewise! Hope to see you soon (ideally on the waters of NYC)!
LikeLike
Looks like a great trip! I am waiting for day 2…
LikeLike
It was! And we are working on it…
LikeLike
Can’t wait to hear about the barking noises.
LikeLike
You’ll never guess. :-)
LikeLike
Johna,
Thanks again for sharing your trip with such clarity. I remembered the first time I nosed into the mud among mangroves and watched a cloud of mosquitoes “flow into the boat” like a fluid! The photographs are always spectacular! Thanks Vlad. It requires a bit of imagination to understand how you manage your camera so effectively. I would enjoying knowing a little about the mechanics of your photography.
Anxious for the next installment. I need to go out and dig a C-1 out of the snow!
George
LikeLike
Flowing into the boat? That’s another advantage of kayaks over canoes ;-) But yes—every time we got too close to the mangroves, we could see, and feel, the mosquitoes closing in… Lunch in the middle of the river or bay was much more pleasant.
I’ll try to post something about kayak photography—at least the way I do it—soon…
Thanks, George! :-)
LikeLike
We now have a cover on the canoe! We are imitating a kayak. Back then the boat was a small sailboat. Amazing little pests.
It would be great to learn a couple of tricks for successful photography from a kayak. The way you do it seems to work! ;-)
Thanks!
LikeLike
I did once think of getting one of the Kruger canoes, which are kind of a canoe-kayak hybrid—but I never carried that thought through…
LikeLike
Hey, you kayakers, I just came across a poem entitled “The Kayak and the Eiffel Tower” that I thought you might appreciate:
http://fledabrown.com/poems/255-2/
LikeLike
Interesting poem!! I didn’t know about Fleda Brown. Thanks for bringing her to our attention, Steve! :-)
LikeLike
So nice to sit in comfort (sans midges) and remember what living in Florida was like. Glorious photos & wonderful prose, as always – thanks to you both for sharing!
del
LikeLike
You are most welcome, del! Day 2 coming up any day now :-)
LikeLike
Many years ago I did this same trip. What fun to follow along with you on your journey! Happy Travels!
LikeLike
Glad to bring back happy memories! But it’s really unforgettable, isn’t it?
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Locating Frankenstein's Brain.
LikeLike
Thanks for reblogging!
LikeLike
Very exciting reading.
LikeLike
Thanks, Gayle! More to come…
LikeLike
What a trip! Your pics are wonderful. You and Johna have such stamina. :) Well done and good luck with the rest of your journey.
LikeLike
Thanks!! Of course, during the Everglades Challenge itself in March we’ll have to do what we did here in 6 days in 1 or 2. Since we can’t assume we’ll paddle much faster, we’ll just have to paddle longer… :-)
LikeLike
Thank you so much for sharing this….After reading the entire thing I could feel as though I’d actually been there every paddle stroke by paddle stroke…and ‘stars like dust’…..I’ve seen them suchlike….at night during the holidays we spent away from the city at my grandparent’s village house…
LikeLike
It struck us so forcefully because here in NYC it’s so light at night that we see hardly any stars, just a few of the brightest ones. But between those there are so many smaller ones, and between those a dust of even smaller ones… :-)
So glad you like our trip so far! More to come… :-)
LikeLike
Pingback: Everglades Shakedown, Day 2: Barking Vultures, Beaches, and Bugs | Wind Against Current
Pingback: Doi Nomazi | Wind Against Current
Pingback: All Roads Lead Home | Wind Against Current