turk and chitwn's Everglades adventure

[turk]

So in a little less than 35 hours we should be heading to Midway airport. We're bringing bare essentials to camp 3 nights in the NW Everglades Natl. Park/ 10,000 Islands Gulf Coast Natl. Wildlife Area. We're bringing a cooking stove, instant meals (dried), as much water as possible, first aid kit, compass and various survival implements. We are kayaking in 17 ft. sea boats. Eclipses by Perception IIRC. Wind and waves on the gulf could be a problem. I have done in-boat rescues before. Kayaks are naturally tippy. We'll post pics when we get back, if we do.

[Hippie]

Pictures! Cool!

[chitwnvw]

Pictures! Cool!

We may wish we had your MacGyver ass with us before this is over.

[Hippie]

I'd just get us all killed....I have this no-fear-of-death issue that I try to keep in check. The Everglades would put me back into adventure mode. (like somewhere out theer is a Cessna with hidden fatigue cracks and barf stains on the back seat....not good)

[Amskeptic]

Sounds like fun. When do we call up the search party?
Colin

[turk]

It all went as planned. There were some stressful moments. It was more difficult than I had originally thought, mainly because of the mangrove islands and tides and wind. We battled 20 knot headwinds most of the second day trying to navigate the maze of mangrove islands and their dead end bays and nooks trying to stay on course and find the passes back inland to our second camp site on an inland site up a tidal river. The swells averaged two feet and we had to charge straight into them to avoid being broad-sided with our completely gear laden boats. That could mean a capsize to us novice sea kayakers, boat being swamped, kayaker overboard in open water. That would mean an in-boat rescue without a bilge pump on open water. Never happened fortunately. We just kept adjusting to the tide and waves and wind and plodded ahead slow and steady, trying to stay on course, which I guessed was about 85 degrees east from magnetic north to circumvent the maze and find the mainland. It was brutal because there is nowhere to get out of the yaks and stretch your legs, and we both got sunburned after 7 hours straight in the boats, but we succeeded finally. It was worth it.
You can't get out on mangroves. There just isn't any place to depart a boat sans likely capsizing it and climbing onto dense precarious mangrove roots which would probably only be a final option. Anyway, it was character building, and our patience and determination paid off. We were lucky but we also acquired some skills in the process. I'll post some pics. I ate a live crab. That was a little survival moment.

[Hippie]

You guys rock!
Come see me next week? (12th on) I'll buy pizza, smoke you up. You tell the stories.

[turk]

I saw a dorsal fin break waves twice at one point in that search for our course, with chitwn way way ahead of me (over 3 hundred yards I would guess) in the two foot swells. My hairs stood up. Probably a dolphin. I was cotton-mouthed and just kept tryin to aim into the waves. It's kinda hard to describe the feeling. The boat just slaps and crashes, with the waves topping the bow and sloshing your chest, and you feel like you're not moving in the wind, and you're afraid of going sideways in the onslaught of waves cause then you'd have to be nimble enough to know to lean into it confidently rather than panicking as the boat tips to a side. It's easy to aim into it with the rudder and reverse strokes, but it slows you down a lot. You need the spray skirt or the wave swamps your cock-pit. Then you start bogging and probably sink.

[turk]

I thought it was cool after we changed our itinerary on the first day, deciding that we would camp two days instead of three because the flight back from Ft. Lauderdale, over 100 miles from our boat put-in, was at 8 am. That way we would stay at a lodge and be able to make the drive back in relative ease, rather than trying to kayak in the dark, navigating a maze of inland tidal bays before sunrise just to get to the car. Wise move. But this is what I liked: chitwn missed his kayak. Priceless. We got attached to our boats in all the adventure. We wouldn't have made it, if we hadn't changed that, is my guess.

[turk]

first two days were starting at the top at the Everglades City Visitor Center Launch down to Jewel Key, camp one night
These beaches are few and far between. I stopped at this one to take a quick pic on the first leg
It was calm, tide was in when we left at around 4 pm on wednsday



Jewel Key

The next day we headed up to Lopez River, more later.

[turk]

chitwn, please lend some of your own thoughts on that adventure. Pics of my bloated winter body too.

[chitwnvw]

I will. Gotta get my pics uploaded...national geo TV has me hypnotized right now...

I miss the open seas and my kayak and tent...life was so simple...

[chitwnvw]

In the spirit of Taratino and Kubrick, this is a tale told out of order...

After all is said and done, a seafood dinner is in order...



With 'live' entertainment where they play along with recorded music.



Turk had been waiting a long time for his celebration dinner, he thought hard and long on what he was going to order...



I think he went with the king fish, in the end his belly was full and he was a happy, albeit sunburned man.

[chitwnvw]

You guys rock!
Come see me next week? (12th on) I'll buy pizza, smoke you up. You tell the stories.

[turk]

I'm fat. Hehe. My head is peeling today from that burn. Hippie, maybe we can swing sometime this month. I have to re-order new gaskets cause I had a leak after rebuilding the carbs. I think I know what I did. A little knick made with my screwdriver while prying a roll-pin through a cam (dumb move) was made on the face of the accelorator pump. That's my theory. Nonetheless, it all has to be re-disassembled and inspected.