Day 12
Thursday February 24th, 2022
Crooked River Chickee to Chokoloskee Smallwood General Store to Everglades City
Miles-9.5
Total-137
There is what must be the biggest, loudest woodpecker in the world across the river from us. His drilling sounds like a 50-caliber machine gun going off.
I slept well last night, but I am sure that had a lot to do with the Benadryl I took for all my bug bites. The sun gently rose this morning to a very cool, almost cold morning. The temperature hasn’t slowed the mosquitoes or no-see-ums though. They are trying to get into the tent at us. We have learned the hard way to place something between our bare skin and the tent wall. I have taken to placing my sleeping bag between me and the mesh wall when I am not in it or to make sure my arms are all the way inside the sleeping bag. My right elbow and right knee have been decimated by mosquitoes. They may not be able to get inside, but they can bite through the mesh.
The early morning fishermen are running their flats boats hard down the river. Their powerful motors are the only thing to break the tranquility. The prevalence of boats also tells us we are close to the end of the trip.
Our newfound friends were up just before us cooking eggs and bacon and making coffee. Those guys are on a whole other level than us with our oatmeal and freeze-dried food. Granted, they have a shorter trip and have the ability to carry a cooler with ice where we cannot, but we are still jealous.
We picked up our conversations with Fred and Mike where we left off last night. While chatting, we slowly worked on packing up and securing our gear. Before we launched, we got pictures together and swapped contact info. We made some new friends. Jamie and I have become experts in launching kayaks off the tall chickees. We passed on some friendly advice on the best way to accomplish the task.
Fred and Mike are heading further into the Everglades with a respectable destination of Hog Key, about twenty miles of paddling for them. Jamie and I have an easier day of about ten miles. We parted ways. They paddled south while we paddled north for the final leg of our trip.
In some ways it was a nice reintroduction to society and civilized life having Fred and Mike join us. It has mostly just been Jamie and I with the birds, dolphins, and a few alligators for the last ten days.
We meandered to Chokoloskee Island coming into the island from the east. The closer we got, the more boats we saw. At one point we passed a fishing boat with a guy up top casting a line while a photographer laid on his back in the bottom of the boat to get an angled shot. As we paddled up, the guy with the fishing pole instructed the photographer to get pictures of Jamie and I as we paddled past. The photographer rolled on his belly at the bow of the boat and dutifully snapped shots through his lens. We tried to straighten up and look like we knew what we were doing. If you see pictures of a couple of dorks in a newspaper or magazine paddling the Everglades near Chokoloskee, that’s us.
We broke into a wide spot in the river where the horizon was the buildings and marina of Chokoloskee. It was jarring to see square shapes of houses after spending so much time in the wilderness. This was it. The adventure is pretty much over at this point. We are back in civilization.
We made one last push against the wind and waves to cross the open water and make our way around the south side of the island. We could have slid up the east side of Chokoloskee and under the causeway bridge for a more direct route to Everglades City, but we wanted to visit the Smallwood General Store by kayak. We wanted to land the way the Seminole Indians did when the store was functional, and they traded there. We wanted to see where Ed Watson was shot and killed.
The Smallwood General Store is still the original building standing on stilts although now days it is a museum and tourist attraction. There was a food vendor selling food out of a trailer. We ate some cliff bars and trail mix instead. We already knew where our next meal was coming from, and it wasn’t going to be from a trailer.
Jamie and I went up the stairs and paid the nominal entry fee then spent the next hour or so looking at all the historical artifacts. I bought an ice cold orange Fanta pulling it from the antique Coca-Cola cooler. A cold drink was a luxury. I’ve been to this place several times before on my motorcycle trips. It was special to me to be able to paddle here this time. I have stood on the back deck in years past to envision what it would be like to paddle up to the Smallwood General Store. Today it was a reality.
The Seminoles would pole their dugout canoes for days to get here to buy and trade goods. Once they arrived, they often stayed for a few days in a room reserved for them in the side of the store before making the strenuous journey back to their villages. A few years ago, we met a young woman running the counter who was a member of the Smallwood family. She told us stories and pulled out a scrapbook showing us pictures of her family with the leadership of the modern Seminole Tribe. Her family is still very friendly with the Seminoles because of their long, mutual history trading at that store.
On that same previous trip on motorcycles, my friend Ed and I went to the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum (say that five times fast!) in the Seminole Indian Reservation and learned some very interesting things. One of which is that while the men would propel the dugout canoe with a pole, the Seminole women did not get a free ride. Singer sewing machines, yes, the Singer brand you are familiar with, manufactured a sewing machine specifically for Seminole Indian women. It was not powered by pumping foot pedals as a standard sewing machine of the era was, but the ones made for Seminole women was more compact and powered by spinning a weighted fly wheel on the end of the machine. The sewing machine could rest on the floor of the canoe while they worked. The women would spend their days in the dugout sewing clothes as the canoe was traveling the wilderness of the Everglades along the same waters Jamie and I had just paddled in modern, state of the art kayaks. All I can say is they were a much tougher people than we are today. I have gained a deeper respect for them.
We left Chokoloskee Island paddling the last three miles to Everglades City. It was an easy paddle. We were in no rush. On the west side of the island and causeway we had minimal wind and waves. Jamie and I chatted about some of the highlights of the trip as it wound down. As the two-story Everglades City National Park Service building came into view we set our course for it. The kayak launch ramp is located just behind it.
The ending of one hundred forty miles of paddling over eleven days and ten nights was rather anticlimactic. There was nobody to greet us. No celebration. We landed amongst other kayakers who were out day paddling. Nobody took note of us. Inside our minds was a different story. The emotions of contentment and happiness at accomplishing our goal needed no fanfare.
We left the kayaks beached and walked up to fire up the truck and back it down to the kayaks. Bob, the guide who transported us at the beginning of the trip left a note on the windshield asking us to call him to let us know we were off the water. He noted the time he wrote it. We missed him by an hour, but true to his word, he was watching out for us. We called him a few hours later to thank him for all his advice. We got loads of bad advice from people prior to the trip. Not so from Bob. He was spot on with everything he told us. We highly recommend Captain Bob.
We also went over to the ranger station to check out. Just like they told us when we started the trip, checking out wasn’t necessary. The park service wasn’t keeping track of us. Seems to me a Wilderness Permit is just another useless tax. Maybe someone can explain why we had to file it and why we had to pay for it. We also asked if they had any stickers. I like to sticker up my motorcycle panniers of places I have been on the bikes as it makes for good memories and also will often spark conversations with strangers when they recognize somewhere they have been too. We wanted to do the same with the kayaks. The park service didn’t have any stickers, but recommended we visit some of the local shops. Our growling stomachs said we would have to do that tomorrow.
We walked back across the parking lot and the groups ahead of us had cleared out from the kayak launch. A gentleman from Sweden asked us for help loading his kayak. Jamie and I put it on top of his car for him. We spent some time talking to him and his wife. He expressed interest in camping overnight from his kayak. We gave him some advice and answered questions for him. When he left, we were the only ones at the kayak launch. The other groups had cleared out. After backing the truck as close as we could, we unpacked the kayaks and loaded the truck with our gear. The kayaks came out of the water for the last time and went back in their cradles in the bed of the truck.
We drove away elated having completed a dream from twenty-five years ago. We also drove away very, very hungry. We skipped lunch on purpose. We had a hot meal waiting for us at Cracklin’ Jack’s back in Naples.
That meal did not disappoint. The waitress, however, had us howling with laughter. We told her we just paddled 140 miles through the Everglades and were hungry. Her immediate response she blurted out and I quote precisely, “what the fuck is wrong with…”, at which point her brain caught up to her mouth as she understood the words she said out loud that she was thinking and gasped, slapping her hand over her mouth before she said anything more. Her eyes got big as it occurred to her what she just said to the restaurant’s customers. We weren’t mad. That was freaking hilarious.
Jamie travels a tremendous amount for work, so he has hotel points. We called the hotel we stayed at the night before we started the trip only to find they were completely booked for the night. No big deal. We called a few more. Same answer. I looked on google maps for a room and saw rooms going for $1500 a night. Lower end motels were going for $400 a night. We will pull out the tent and sleep in a field somewhere before we pay those prices. We just spent 10 nights in a tent. One more night wasn’t going to hurt us. We had our hot meal. A hotel was just a bonus at this point. Jamie contacted customer service for his rewards program and they found us a room in a nice hotel in Fort Myers an hour away. We took it. None of the hotel clerks or the customer service representative were able to tell us what was going on that every single room in Naples was booked even at those outrageous prices, on a Thursday night no less. I got my scalding hot shower and a real bed to sleep comfortably on for the night.
Tomorrow the plan is to head back to Everglades City to get those stickers and then to several places I want to show Jamie. The Everglades is rich with history and unique things to see. We won’t have time for everything, but we can get in a few items on my list. The paddling part may be done, but the trip isn’t quite over just yet.
DirtMedic 