Dear Reader,
It is totally my fault that we didn’t paddle today. And I didn’t know that it was going to happen until 3:00 am this morning when I woke up shivering.
Anticipating a cold morning like the one before, I’d gone to bed dressed in my fleece sweater over my usual sleep-attire tank top and in my stretch pants over my undies. And I’d put on my thin cotton socks. Which is more than I wore the night before. But it wasn’t enough. So I added long underwear bottoms, a pair of wool socks, another fleece top, a fleece hat and a pair of fingerless green wool gloves. It still wasn’t enough. I was still shivering and snuggled deep next to John who just kept right on happily snoring.
No way was I going to be able to get up in a few hours, on little sleep and still freezing, and put in our longest day yet on this trip: an estimated 17 nm to the charming Oyster Capitol town of Appalachicola. So when John woke me at 5:00, I claimed today as a Layover Day and he didn’t argue.
Huddled in our sleeping bags, we drank hot coffee and surfed the web until the sun started heating up the tent and John got up and made breakfast.
Our bodies needed a rest. And besides, we had some shopping to do.
My brother Rick will be passing through this area next week and he lives near an REI and there’s some gear we need. This is what we ordered:
And what I’m most excited about is the sleeping bag liner with an Insect Shield! I didn’t even know they made such a thing! I mean, I knew about the sleeping bag liners. John was snoring away last night snuggled up in his warm, silk sleeping bag liner inside his sleeping bag. I had my 13-year-old sleeping bag liner with me too last night. But it’s torn into such threads that it’s become my pillow is all. So, I went looking for a new one this morning online and lo and behold Sea to Summit makes one with a moisture-wicking material good for hot, humid climates (when, instead of using it for added warmth, you then use it to help keep your sleeping bag clean or even as your entire sleeping bag) and, get this, an Insect Shield! And the satisfied reviewers rave about it! I’m thinking Everglades! I’m thinking all the nights we fall asleep with that one or two mosquitoes inside our tent we weren’t able to swat before collapsing into unconsciousness. I’m thinking happiness!
And John is most excited about his new Hydroskin shorts order. That’s what I wear paddling and I love them, both for here and for paddling in the Pacific Northwest. He has loved wearing his nylon shorts. But they dry out up in the Pacific Northwest. Here, in all this humidity and with all the waves that keep spilling over our boat decks, his nylon shorts just stay soaking wet and uncomfortable. He’s hoping his current chafing will go away.
The other items are just necessities: camp suds and another kitchen sink for our three-wash system of sudsy water, rinse water and bleach water. More stakes for when trees aren’t available for our tarp setup. Stove fuel. And a spatula because it seems we uncharacteristically left ours at our last night’s camp.
The rest of the day was spent studying our Trail Guide. Planning. Counting days to our resupply mail drops. Counting days and miles to when we’re hoping to meet up with my sister in Homosassa. Studying the Guide to try to get an idea of where we’re going to be paddling and camping in two weeks’, three weeks’ time.
I’m used to studying River Guides which are mostly maps with symbols and some writing. When we backpacked the 450-mile Colorado Trail twenty years ago with our seven-year-old son, camping locations were plentiful and we got our water from the streams, which we filtered. We dealt very little with private property issues. And when we drove to Alaska on the Cassiar Highway and followed the Milepost Guidebook, it was pretty darn straightforward.
This guidebook feels totally different. Every section beyond where we’ve just paddled feels like reading French to me (a language we studied in France and even spoke at an simple, conversational level when we lived in France). I recognize the alphabet. I even understand the words. But it’s torture turning the Guide’s sentences into the picture of what I really, mostly, need it to be: a map with real, designated, available campsites and understandable mileages.
That’s the downside.
The upside is that it’s like a treasure chest. Every day I understand one more page of it: the page that we just paddled.
I look at the pages that represent the 1,350 miles we have still to paddle all the way to Georgia, and I’m excited! It’s gibberish now but hopefully soon I will be able to turn all those words into picture memories in my mind. I will have deciphered the code! I will have … circumnavigated Florida. And been one of the first few dozen people to officially do so.
Yes, the trail is that new. And thus that undeveloped. In a very developed and regulated and private-property-rich area. Unlike the Inside Passage route between Washington State and Alaska, which John paddled in the early 1980s, and much of British Columbia coast.
When undeveloped route meets undeveloped land, you are ok (I’m thinking Loreto to La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico). When developed route meets developed area you are ok (I’m thinking Cascadia Marine Trail in Washington which John and I paddled last summer. Or the San Juan Islands. Or Lake Chelan.) But when a recent, semi-developed route, like this one, meets a very developed area, like Florida, then it takes being a rocket scientist to decipher the Trail Guide.
And thus is how we spend part of each layover day and evening. Where can we find a campsite? Where can we get drinking water? Where can we land our kayaks in a town and safely leave them? How far will we have to walk to a store? Where can we toss our garbage? And if we can’t make it to X or Y or Z, because of the wind or the currents or the waves or the tides or the fetch or the shallows or the cold, what’s a viable fall back plan?
Meanwhile, I’m super excited about getting my Insect Shield CoolMax Sleeping Liner and John’s looking forward to having a more comfortable tush. We’ll let you know how it goes!
Now I need to go dress in tonight’s layers! It’s gonna be another cold one. And we have our longest day yet of paddling tomorrow.
We are alive.
We are healthy.
We are adventurers.
Goodnight!
Cheers, Susana
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