I woke up at 6:15 AM and was on the water by 6:30. I fished many different inlets on islands between my campsite and the park visitor's center. I had a good strike on a jig in a patch of grass but I didn't set the hook well and lost the fish. While on the water, I pulled off of a main channel and into a narrow water way. Here, I sat in my canoe in about 6 inches of water and had a breakfast of summer sausage and crackers. I was farther north from my campsite than I had yet been and chose my breakfast location in an area where I could watch the ibises hunt in the mud.
After breakfast, I paddled farther north through the narrow waterway. As there were no waves and I was in shallow water, I stood and paddled like an Italian gondolier through the extremely shallow water. To my left was a dense jungle of palms and other tall trees that ran parallel to the water; on my right were mud flats and grass islands broken up by small channels. I spooked some redfish or croakers in the shallow water. However, I was not concerned with fishing at the moment. Instead, I was enjoying the exploration of new territory. With no one within eyesight, I enjoyed the feeling of being alone in the wilderness. I especially enjoyed all of the different waterbirds around me. I found a few ibises on a grass island ahead of me and crouched in my canoe so that I could paddle as close to them as possible without them seeing me. I got within 20 yards and watched them for a while before moving onward.
For the distance I traveled and the shallow depth of the water, I was surprised to only get stuck once. Even then, I didn't have to get out of the canoe to free myself. As I reached the end of the mile or so long channel, I noticed another channel turning to the northwest. This waterway was a little deeper with a similar structure of tall trees on one side and low, grassy islands on the other; however, the sides were switched. At the entrance to the channel was a marker with #11 and an arrow pointing into it. Hoping this was the Treasure Island Paddle Trail that I had read about, I followed the arrow. I paddled while standing again and, while there were fewer birds here, this area had its own unique features. On the long island that was covered with trees, there were thousands upon thousands of small crabs on the shore. As I paddled, the crabs would see me and it would look like the entire shoreline of the island was receding into itself.
I encountered another unique feature when I had paddled about a half of a mile into the channel. I was less fond of this one. Cutting across the channel was a bright yellow tarp like thing that appeared to be some sort of tool to prevent water flow. Anchored on either side of the channel, the top of the barrier floated by having large foam pieces sewn into the tarp. The rest of the tarp hung below these floats and appeared to go to the bottom of the channel. At first, I thought this was the end of the trail. Then, I noticed that there was another numbered sign and arrow on the other side of the barrier. Well, I hadn't come all this way to be stopped by a road block. So, I backed up about fifteen yards and then paddled full speed at the part of the barrier that I thought to be weakest. I got a little over a third of my canoe over the barrier. I then moved to the front and paddled as hard as I could to get the back end of my canoe over the obstacle. Success! I paddled on. In less than a hundred yards, I found another barrier. I performed the same routine and got over it. Exhausted, I looked ahead and there were at least three barriers within sight! I conceded defeat and decided to turn around. I didn't want to be battling obstacles for the next several miles.
By the time I had gone back over the last obstacle on the way back to where I began, I was a pro at jumping the yellow barriers. I could nearly get the entire canoe over on just the first surge. In fact, I was taking a break after crossing that last barrier, taking pride in my ingenuity in getting over the barriers when I realized that the water was shallower than earlier. All this time I had been on the water and not once had I considered to see if the tide was going in or out! I knew that if the water reached low tide while I was still in the shallow channel, the mud would be too deep for me to get out and walk. I would have to wait for hours for the tide to rise again. With consistent afternoon thunderstorms in the area, getting stuck was a situation I wished to avoid. I paddled fast and flew through the channel. Luckily, I got out.
I continued onward and watched a Great Egret hunt by walking along the shore and sticking out one wing. I think it did this to either take the glare of the sun off of the water or trick the baitfish into thinking they were hidden by cover. Either way, the technique appeared effective. I then watched a pelican hunt by sitting on the water, spying fish, running on the surface of the water while flapping its wings, and then dive bombing the fish. This appeared less effective. Next, I watched an osprey dive into the water from 60' in the air. It flew off with a hefty mullet and the prize for the best hunting method. All of this occurred within five minutes.
After paddling a little farther, I found a long, 100 yard wide channel. The channel ran north-south with the wind blowing out of the southeast at my back, I fished by paddling to the east side of the channel and then allowing the wind to drift me across and down the channel. When I reached the other side, I paddled back to the east side and drifted again while fishing. I caught 13" speckled trout fishing this way and using an orange and white, Gulp swimbait on my spinning rod. The water was only about two feet deep. After catching my first fish in the lagoon, and with good wind conditions, I switched to a fly rod with a clouser minnow. I fished for another several hundred yards with no luck.
By now, I had drifted to the front gate of the park. I could see a herd of menacing clouds rolling my way and realized I was about 3 miles away from my camp. Time to paddle back. While the wind had been great for drift fishing, it was terrible for paddling into it with a light, aluminum canoe. If I tried to paddle at an angle to the wind, in the direction of my camp, the wind either turned the front of my canoe or simply slid my canoe and I right across the water. I couldn't even compensate for the power of the wind by increasing the angle of my path, I just kept getting blown off course. I ended up taking a lot of breaks and often paddling backward so that the light front end of the canoe drifted behind me instead of jutting into the wind like a sail. Nothing worked. However, after about 2 miles or so, I had a semi-intelligent thought. Instead of taking the wind at an angle to try to progress to my camp, I paddled directly into the wind, perpendicular to the path to my camp. I still had to fight the wind, but now I only had to struggle for distance, not for orientation. Plus, I was more aerodynamic. Once I thought I had paddled far enough, I turned around and let the wind push me as I made an angle in the direction of the camp, but not directly to it. This method worked great, and I started stagger-stepping my way to the camp. Finally, I was within a quarter mile of my camp and had a little time before the clouds reached me. I anchored in 6 feet of water and ate another lunch of summer sausage and crackers. By 12:30 PM, I had already paddled at least 7 miles. The first 4 were easy, the last 3 exhausted me.
As I sat and ate my lunch, I heard splashing behind me. I turned to see dolphins ripping through the water, chasing fish. They were easily within 10 yards of my canoe. All of a sudden, a dolphin jumped nearly completely out of the water, only 8 feet off the nose of my canoe! As it turned in the air, showing its white underbelly, I saw a large baitfish in its mouth. What an experience! The dolphins left soon afterward.
I paddled to within 50 yards of camp, anchored again and fished a little. I could see the storm coming but, not wanting to fight the bugs just yet, I decided to hang out in the canoe. The area didn't feel very fishy, so I laid back in my canoe, tilted my hat over my face, and took a nap. At 2 PM, I woke up and saw that the clouds looked much worse than earlier and were nearly on top of me. I lost my hat as I paddled back to camp. Although I didn't have to paddle very far downwind to retrieve my lost property, it was incredibly difficult to paddle back to camp, into the wind. The wind had really picked up during my nap. If I had waited until now to make my long paddle back from the front gate, I would have not physically been able to paddle against this wind for three miles. Needless to say, I was glad that I left when I did.
Returning to camp, I cleaned up the remnants of my trash that had been scattered around my camp after a raccoon marauded my garbage. I then rain-proofed all of my gear just in time for the rain to begin. The bottom of the clouds dropped out and the sky poured. Feeling and smelling filthy after 3 days of wearing the same clothes, I stripped off my garments and showered in the cool rain. Afterward, the huge overhang of the blue tarp over my tent acted as a great canopy to crouch under and dry off before diving into my tent. The unrelenting storm pounded my blue tarp with bucket-loads of rain, but I remained dry. More concerning was the lightning all around me and knowing that my tarp was strung between two trees. I hoped that the lightning would strike the tall palm trees rather than my oak tree and sapling. At one point, it sounded like a bolt of lightning did just that. I could have sworn it struck a tree not 20 yards away from my tent. Being that there was nothing I could do to prevent lighting from striking my trees, I decided to take a nap.
I woke up at 4 PM and wrote notes in my journal to use later to write this blog. At 5, I paddled out and fished for about an hour and a half. I decided to finally explore the little channel of water that wandered behind my camp. Just when I thought I had seen most of the lagoon, my eyes were opened to the immense size of this wilderness. Sitting in a channel in my canoe, only a stone throw away from my camp, I cast my gaze over the lagoon. No kidding, if I multiplied the entirety of all of the lagoon I had seen thus far by a factor of ten, it would not do justice to the size of the part of the lagoon I was now observed. Astounding.
I paddled around a little more before returning to the part of the lagoon off the front side of my camp. I observed a castnetter catch baitfish for a while. He would grab the net with his left hand at about its midpoint, with the beads hanging down. He would then grab one of the weighted beads and put it in his mouth. With two effective strings of beads hanging from his mouth, he grabbed the line of beads farthest away from his body. He grabbed the string at its lowest point, where it met the rest of the hanging, bunched up beads. Finally, he would spin clockwise and backhand cast the net.
Back at camp, I had a dinner of chicken noodle soup from a can and pear halves, also from a can. I cleaned up my campground and picked up a lot of trash that other people had left. Then, one last time, I paddled out onto the water to watch the the gorgeous sunset. When I got back to camp, I quickly got into my tent, now a pro at my nighttime routine. I squished all of the no-see-ums, mosquitoes, and even some new fire ants in my tent and then easily fell asleep.
The last sunset
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