I woke up naturally around 6 AM. After quickly throwing on the same outfit I wore the day before, I paddled out onto the water to escape the bugs. In one shirt pocket, I carried my phone in a waterproof case with a cord that hung around my neck. In the other pocket, I carried a compass and a map; and in one of my pants pockets, I had my pocket knife. I figured these items would be important if I were to get lost or fall overboard and lose everything else.
On the water, I set up two spinning rods and a fly rod. For the spinning rods, I had one rigged up with a backbone jig to hook up with a shrimp and the other with a Gulp swim bait. I put a chartreuse clouser minnow on the fly rod. Nearby, only two islands away, I found some large schools of tiny baitfish. I could see fish hitting the water, so I began casting. It took me a while to get a good view of the fish and realize that they were big tarpon. Unfortunately, I didn't have any lures as small as the baitfish, and my bait did not entice the beasts. After a while, it looked like a storm was upon me. I decided to paddle back to shore, having only fished a few hours.
However, on the way to the campsite, I noticed a pod of manatees surfacing only a hundred yards away. I diverted my path and paddled to where I had last seen them. As I waited in my canoe for one of the sea cows to surface, I felt a bump under my canoe. I looked around to find the nose of a big manatee nudging the back end of my canoe. Fascinated, I watched as the intrigued creature swam around and under my canoe. I guess she figured that my canoe was not a threat and so decided to scratch her back on the bottom of my canoe. Then, she flipped over on her back and scratched her belly on the canoe! It was one of the coolest experiences of my entire trip! After adequately scratching her back and belly, she decided to nibble on my anchor line that was drooping off the back of the canoe. If it weren't for the impending storm, I would have stayed longer. As it was, I finally decided I should get back to land.
At my campsite, I threw on my mosquito head net and quickly rain-proofed everything. This process entailed tying up my trash bag, clearing the picnic table and putting everything in my big plastic bin, and suspending all of my fishing gear in the air. For the fishing gear, I put my saltwater bag, my freshwater bag, and my fly bag in my egg crate, hung it up in a tree, and wrapped it all in a trash bag.
It was about 10 or 11 AM and I hadn't eaten much more than a granola bar all day, so I cooked cream of wheat for breakfast which I topped with raisins and complemented with summer sausage. I waited for it to start raining, but the clouds just blew right over. So, I paddled back out into the lagoon. I fished near where the manatees had previously been and had another one come up to inspect my boat as I fished. Manatees must be the world's most curious and laid-back creatures.
Not catching any fish, I moved on to a 1 - 2 ft deep, narrow channel where I tried my luck. Immediately, I spooked a couple reds. Excitedly, I cast my jig all around. It didn't take me long to realize that this would be difficult fishing. In addition to shallow water that made me very visible to the fish, the entire sea floor was covered with this pine needle-like grass that just piled onto my lure. In an attempt to fish the surface and avoid the grass, I switched to a white jerkbait, hooked weedless and without a weight. It was a futile effort. I still caught a ton of grass. It was frustrating, to say the least, to be surrounded by fish and know that there was nothing I could do to work my lure and not catch a heap of grass. Finally, I gave up and moved to new water.
As I paddled, I saw great egrets, tricolored herons, great blue herons, snowy egrets, white ibises, and ospreys. I paddled through a small, quiet channel and watched baitfish race around. The channel spit me out on the other side of the island and I saw some more manatees feeding in shallow water. I ventured a little farther before anchoring my boat and fixing a lunch of crackers and summer sausage. Another storm rose upon me. This one seemed bigger than the other. Not wanting to get stuck on the water, I raced the clouds to my campsite, rain-proofed everything, and waited. Sure enough, it started raining. I tried showering in the rain but it sprinkled so lightly that I just ended up wet but not clean. I climbed into my tent, dried off, killed about 20 no-see-ums that were in my tent, and napped for a little while. It was a short rain.
I cooked a dinner of chicken noodle soup and pork & beans at about 5:30 PM. For dessert, I had diced pineapple chunks. Everything was canned so it was easy cooking. I went back onto the water where I fished and played harmonica for a while. When a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? When I play harmonica on the water and no one is there to hear it, is it a beautiful work of musical brilliance? These are questions to which the world might never know the answers.
I practiced some fly casting from the canoe before I went back to clean my campsite for the night. Soon enough, I was back on the water to watch the sunset. Then, I was back at the campsite again to call it a night at 8 PM, just before it got dark. I changed out of my clothes and dove into my tent. Still, approximately 2.6 million no-see-ums got inside. I killed as many as I could see, turned off the light for a little while, turned it back on, and killed some more that surfaced. I repeated this pattern for about 30 minutes until I though I had killed all of the little demons. It was hot and humid but manageable. One thing that really helped was having an electric fan and a cooling towel that I could wet and lay on top of myself (thanks Dad!). I was tired after paddling about 4 miles that day and I slept a little better than the night before.
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