Dear Reader,
As soon as I signed off last night, the rains came and pounded on the tent like a drum and thunder boomed in the distance. Once it quelled, I got up to pee and stumbled to the river’s edge by headlamp. No wonder it’s a swamp. The kayaks were practically floating in the puddles that had formed beneath them even as they sat on high ground. I looked furtively about with my headlamp in the otherwise pitch black of the moonless night, half expecting to find an alligator by my side, and dashed back to the tent thinking myself an idiot for such careless wandering by the river in the dark.
Today though, we weren’t going anywhere. Winds called for gusts as high as 25 mph and since we have a bay to cross when we get off the river in about eight miles, and since John still has a fever, we decided to let this cold front pass while we lounged around and slumbered in Tate’s Hell for one more day.
In the land of strange growths.
Among infrequent white flowers.
And tall skinny pines with paths that lead to somewhere.
And the rain, accumulated serendipitously on our cockpit covers by this morning, provided the extra water we’d need to stay an extra day.
And not just any day.
Yes, here along this river of mirrored reflections, bundled in jackets and winter hats, we celebrate our first month’s anniversary out on Florida’s Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail.
Maybe it’s time to look at our first month’s stats:
28: Total Days out
218: Total Nautical Miles Paddled
(Total Average of 7.8 nm/days out)
20: Total Paddling Days
(Total Average of 10.9 nm/days paddling)
18.5: Longest Day Paddling (Apalachicola to Carrabelle Point)
1.9 nm: Shortest Day Paddling (Carrabelle Point into Carrabelle)
8: Total Layover Days (4 expected, 4 unexpected, due to weather &/or illness)
3: Total ReSupplies (Navarre, Panama City, & Carrabelle which had a Mail Drop)
20: Nights Primitive Camping
8: Total Nights Paid Lodging (2 do to wind). Of these:
2 Nights in Hotels (Navarre & Destin)
2 Nights on Boat (Panama City)
2 Nights in an Inn (Apalachicola)
2 Nights at a B&B (Carrabelle)
Highlights so far: Perdido Key Camp, Washington Point, Apalachicola, the first day on the Crooked River, the people we’ve met and stories we’ve shared, the birds, the dolphins, the sea.
Lowlights so far: Stealth camping under the Destin Bridge, the horror night of bugs at anaerobic Live Oak Point, the two waves that almost flipped me, John being sick, me peeing in my boat, the aches and pain and pain and aches.
John rallied and made a fire to create briquettes for his dutch oven dinner.
Bean and chicken enchiladas to keep us warm through another cold night in this land of crooked rivers and crooked trees.
We’ll see how John feels in the morning.
And then we’ll reevaluate our targeted goal of reaching Key West by May 9th when we’re already five days behind schedule and now John’s sick.
As Skip, the innkeeper in Carrabelle said: “If you were in a hurry to get to Key West, I guess you would’ve flown.”
Maybe instead it’ll be the Everglades by May 9th for us. Or maybe even north of there. We’ll just have to see what’s beyond this next bend in the river, and what surprises tomorrow and the next one, and the one after that one, will bring.
We are alive.
We are (not totally) healthy.
We are adventurers.
Goodnight!
Cheers, Susana