Ecotourism in Florida - Without a Paddle (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine August 2003

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The Water Issue: Restoration Dreams
Without a Paddle (Cont.)

OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS, our journey becomes deceivingly pleasant. First we happen upon an airboat trail, which makes for easy poling. Then we hit Rookery Branch, where Shark River Slough pretty much becomes Shark River and heads southeast. Here the water gets relatively deep for the Everglades—five feet or so—and you can see clear to the bottom. The ubiquitous saw grass rattles in the wind, while pond-apple trees, yellow pond lilies, and pickerelweed, with its iridescent purple flowers, line the riverbanks. From time to time, a huge bass slaps the surface, or a little blue heron, still in its white phase, swoops down, spies us, and flaps out, fast.

Such are the joys of Rookery Branch. Then things get really tough. Shark River eventually dumps into the Gulf of Mexico at Whitewater Bay, but in an Evergladean reverie I decide that we should cut straight south to Florida Bay. Someone should have hit me with a pole.

Almost immediately we run up against a wall of gnarly mangroves and are unable to find

The old Everglades is gone forever. Yes, the park will always be here, standing tough like some old-growth forest surrounded by the latest gated community. But the Frankenstein's-monster version—with its massive pumps and miles of readjusted canals—is waiting in the shadows.

a way through its rat's nest of crisscrossing roots and limbs. That night, our fifth in the Everglades, I lie on my plywood board, slowly being driven mad by the lonely bark of a pig frog. I think of what Willoughby said about the Everglades after dark: "Everything had been so desolate and quiet during the day that one would naturally think the stillness of the night would be quite appalling," he wrote. "But as the hours advanced, new combinations of sounds broke upon the ear . . . The first to tune up were the frogs. Those frogs do not have the respectable croak of their Northern brothers; they make a noise like a creaky sheave on an old block...But the worst sound to sleep through is the cry of the limpkin. We have seen them almost all day and they seemed like a quiet, well-behaved bird, but their conduct at night is something most disreputable."

Alas, the cry of the limpkin, a hair-raising screech. Like so many other birds that used to nest and feed here, these three-foot-tall muddy-brown birds are mostly gone—we've seen one—because their main food source, the apple snail, is disappearing.

I've almost dozed off when David starts swinging his arms. About half an hour later, he stops. Our platform is still. Then, in a pained whisper, he begins his lament: "The hands, the hands...ohhh, the hands." Kurtz in the Everglades.

The next morning, we charge into the mangroves. Six lousy miles, that's all we have to cover, then we'll be on more navigable streams. In no time we're pushing, dragging, bending our canoes through an endless series of S-turns. The water is black from tannin and rot. It's up to our chests, and the stench of methane engulfs us. Little green tree frogs ride on our shoulders. Orb weaver spiders ensnare us. But we push on. We must reach the end, see freshwater meeting salt!

By noon, we can't go more than ten yards without using a saw. By 2:30, we've gone less than half a mile for the day; the last 50 yards have taken us an hour. A phalanx of mangroves at least 20 yards deep covers the entire stream. We can't even see through to open water—a pathetic first.

I climb a thick trunk. There's a pool just 20 feet ahead that we couldn't see from water level. Past that, it's worse—much, much worse. I look back. To my utter astonishment, I can see that we've actually been following a path for a long ways. But that's gone now. I turn and look ahead again. Oh, no. The trees seem to be...marching toward me.

It's time to make a decision. Steve has to be back at work in two days; David is supposed to fly home in three. It's hopeless. The mangroves have beaten me again.

We retreat. It means giving up, not reaching Florida Bay, but there's not much choice.

"Hodding, I'm concerned you might feel this is a mutiny," Saranne says.

"Yeah, I do, but it's a welcome one. I'll take saw grass over mangroves any day."

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