We, Anne and I, are at Heritage Cove this evening for our winter stay in southwest Florida.  We arrived last Friday after hectic weeks at home preparing for the trip, celebrating the holidays, and enduring the passing of my mother. 

We had planned to make a canoe trip into the Ten Thousand Islands region of Everglades National Park before settling in with Mom and Dad Woods.  That trip was inspired in part by my reading of Peter Matthiessen’s novel, Shadow Country, last winter at Fort Myers. 

That book spoke of this region of the Everglades that I had never really explored.  Oh, I had spent time along Tamiami Trail and Loop Road, boated a bit out of Collier Seminole State Park, and taken a few boat rides from Everglades City, but I never spent a night in this part of south Florida.  I also have long wanted to paddle the Wilderness Waterway that runs between Flamingo and Everglades City.  I thought the waterway would be a good seven day adventure through the mangrove region of the Everglades where exists a grand mangrove forest variously divided by narrow and wide channels, lakes, and bays.  This is a forest in the mud.  At high tide the forest floor is flooded.  The only “high” ground is at small bands of dunes behind sea beaches and on “shell mounds”  where the Calusa Indians added a few feet of shell fill onto the swamp ground.  This part of the Everglades is a “land” that can be explored only by water. 

Originally, I had intended to run the length of the waterway, but time would not allow that this year.  The planned paddle was at one point cancelled.  My mother’s death left us exhausted but it also left us with one less set of responsibilities.  In the end, a six day window opened up between our arrival in Florida and our providing support to Mom and Dad Woods.  So, we decided to make a loop paddle south and east of Chokoloskee.  This old town is situate on one of the largest of the shell mounds.    A fishing and trading community resettled the Indian town on Chokoloskee Island.

The campsites in this part of the national park are of three types.  Some our tiny campgrounds upon shell mounds.  Many of these mounds had become homesteads before the creation of the park and bear the names of the former inhabitants.  Campsites are also established among the low dunes along beaches on Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.  A final peculiar type of campsite is provided at locations where there is no high ground.  These so-called “chickees” consisting of one or two roofed platforms with a small dock and porta potty.  They are named for dwelling chickees of the Seminole in the Everglades swampland.  The camping chickees are typically located within a lake or bay. 

Our itinerary had us running first southwest through an interior set of brackish bays or lakes, then taking the Broad River to Florida Bay, and finally returning through the Bay and Gulf through some of “the ten thousand islands” back to Chok.  The weather forecast looked good for this.  A cold front would pass while by on Wednesday when we were still in the interior, blow itself out, and then we would skirt the coast safely home.  At least that was the plan.

We arrived at Everglades City on Sunday at eight a.m. to pick up our permit at the ranger station.  Fifth in line, we were able to reserve all our desired sites but one, a chickee that was closed for renovation.    Then we continued on to Chokoloskee and procured our vessel at the marina there.  We loaded the boat, set a heading, and started into the maize of mangrove. 

Our start was auspicious with good weather.  My only complaint was that the wind was against us.  Later on this trip I would state that the best way to navigate these waters was to determine the direction of the wind and paddle directly into it.  That would mostly have worked on this voyage. 

Occasional numbered posts guided us along our way.  The course passed through various bays or lakes, creeks, and narrow channels all lined with a wall of mangrove forest.   The winter here has so far been mild so we expected a few insects.  They met us at Lopez’s Place where we lunched. 

We paddled on into the “bloody” Ed Watson place campsite on the first day. At the Watson place the insects, mosquitoes and no-see-ums (Ceratopogonids) drove us to bed when the sun set.  We shared this small clearing with a younger couple from Wisconsin.

We found no sign of ghosts at the Watson place.  Rumor has it there were killings there.  Watson’s neighbors didn’t trust him and one day when he went to Chokoloskee a greeting party shot him to pieces.  The motivation was “self defense.”  No charges were filed.

On day two we worked our way to the Plate Creek Chickee.  This is a single platform unit and we had it to ourselves.  At least we did until the sun went down and a few thousand mosquitoes emerged from a nearby island and swarmed aboard.  We retreated to the tent and read on a book tablet.  Our trip was going well.  We had really gotten lost only once then shooting into the wrong bite of a bay and not finding the outlet creek.  I studied the chart and found my error.  It is hard to hold a compass heading exactly when paddling a canoe.  One estimates the heading roughly with the compass and map on the floor in front of you and then picks out a landmark ahead along the relatively featureless forest that appears a mile away across a lake littered with islands.  Then you paddle to that location and with luck you outlet is there.  Along the way you will pass various islands, “keys,” and bights along the shore.  A slight error will take you to the wrong side of a key or a point and you will miss your objective.  One can seldom travel in a straight line.  At worst you take a wrong creek or channel that takes you completely off course.

On day three we worked our way through stiff wind to the Rogers River Chickee.  The wind had been strong since the start and always against us.  I told Anne that we could navigate by simply pointing the bow into the wind. 

The days had been warm and upon arriving at Rogers River Bay we were sweaty and unchanged after three days of heavy paddling.  We struggled at the end of the day to get in early enough to shower.   Arriving to find a young man, Alex, already at the other platform at this two tent chickee, we greeted him, set up out tent, changed into our bathing suits, and gathered a bottle of bay water.  We poured it over each other and scrubbed with “soap towels.”  The water was mild but still a bit shocking.  The bay was only mildly brackish but we rinsed lightly with a bit of the precious cargoed fresh water.  This water was precious for drinking and cooking, but how much better we felt after putting on clean clothes.  We chatted with Alex but retreated again at sunset to avoid having to Deet up our clean bodies.

Our plan had been to continue a bit farther and paddle out on the Broad River, but Alex told us that he had heard that the smaller Rogers River was passable and would shorten our trip.  We had assumed at the start that about a three mile per hour speed was practical, but that proved difficult when tides, wind, and waves attacked us.  Alex also had an updated weather report that indicated weather coming the next day.  The front was now a day late.  It could cause us fits along the coast.  I wanted to get to the beach before any passage that would stir up the Gulf of Mexico. 

The Rogers River was lovely and we took it on an outgoing tide.  An embarrassing note.   Rogers River is east of the Lostman’s River and my chart ended at the Lostman’s River.  The marina said they had the next chart when I called but not when I arrived.  I should have gone back to Everglades City for another chart but did not want to delay the departure.  So all we had east of Lostman’s River was a map, and a map is not a chart.  Our friend Alex had a chart and I studied the Rogers River on that chart.  I did fine until the river broke up into islands that I did not see on the chart except at the Gulf.  But, I didn’t think we were at the Gulf because I didn’t realize how quickly we slid down the river with its tidal current.  We poked about a bit for a channel I thought should go east when I looked between a couple of keys and saw the Gulf azure and blazing in sunshine outside the maize of mangroves.

Our float down the Rogers River was lovely.  The overhanging forest largely sheltered the stream from the constant breeze giving us a lovely quiet time to observe the forest and its creatures.  We encountered white-crowned pigeons there.  This south Florida “specialty” is difficult to find in the winter.  Dolphins breeched in deeper sections of channel.  Our buddy, Alex, spotted manatee too, but we missed them.  How does one miss a thousand pound animal in a small stream? you may ask.  Simple, they are dark, the water is tinted brown, and deposits of leaves and bark in holes are black.  The slow moving manatee disappears there.

Entering the Gulf was exciting.  We scanned the inlet and lateral channel that avoided the major contact of the river and the sea.  The delta was similar to others in this region.  The tidal flow makes a delta that is in places mangrove covered.  Waves and tides draw water through the channels and over the bars.  Often waves form or are heightened at the meeting of waters.  In a canoe one prefers to avoid waves, so seeing a side channel I took it and we floated into the open, rounded a bar, and began paddling northwest toward a southwesterly facing point.  The wind was from the north.  Farther out the sea was choppy, but not too rough.  I was glad for that.  We rounded the point and began working along the cape. 

About that time our friend Alex emerged from the river.  He expressed an interest in staying close because he was heading south.  We decided to stay with him that evening and beached about a hundred meters from his stop.  Our landing went well until Anne lost her balance upon landing and took a brief dip into the Gulf.  Soon we were ashore and had our tent up.  Anne changed.

We walked a mile or so up the beach that afternoon.  It was lovely and saturated with shore birds at high tide.  They were common, sanderling, black-bellied plover, semipalmated plover, piping plover, dunlin, western sandpiper, least sandpiper, and willet, but the thousands of birds provided fine viewing.  They nervously herded forward with us and occasionally flew out and behind us as we progressed along the narrow natural beach.  We passed jack crevalle, goliath grouper (jewfish), and dolphin feeding along the shore.  We had camped on a meadow on low dunes but found a couple of cabbage palm groves providing lovely protected campsites further north.  Next time we will choose one of them for our tent.

Back at camp Alex was starting a fire.  I helped and we chatted until supper.  A rudder cable on his kayak had snapped and he made a repair with monofiliment.  I doubted it would hold.  He would have to steer by paddle if it didn’t.  His was a bold solitary voyage.  He had already concluded he would not do it alone again.  Good news for him was the north breeze that would push him towards Flamingo.

We, meanwhile faced a north wind.  Another problem was the tide.  The tide ebbed in late afternoon.  The ranger issuing the permit had mentioned that this location had “skinny water.”  Upon our arrival I was glad to find a steeply sloping beach and some two feet of depth.  We thought the tide was mostly down, but the tide charts are not very accurate in those parts.  As the afternoon progressed we discovered that the steeply sloping beach went down two feet to a horizontal mud flat that appeared to extend no farther than Mexico. 

We knew we would have to deal with that in the morning when we wanted an early start to make progress before any wind came up.  The insects were not so bad on the beach in the breeze, but still we went to bed early.  One can do only so much in an undeveloped campsite in the dark.  We read from our tablet until sleepy.

We awoke at 5:30 in the dark.  The full moon had set.  We dressed and rolled up our bedding before emerging and took an abbreviated breakfast as dawn broke.  Fifty meters of mud flat extended beyond the short sloping beach.  We made our farewells to Alex and suggested he photograph a couple of idiots dragging a canoe across a mudflat.  He may have done that.  At our launch the flat extended about one hundred meters.  Then the canoe floated, but we had to pull it that much farther before we could sit in it.  We tried to steer north and along the shore, but bars kept pushing us farther west.  After a time we beached again.  I dragged the canoe about a half mile before we could resume paddling.  The same thing happened again.  By ten o’clock water was returning, but the wind was rising and coming from the north, our heading.  We were perhaps a mile off shore.  The paddling became more and more difficult.  We cleared the Highland Beach Cape and began crossing the broad delta of the Lostman’s River.  I watched as we paddled in the face of increasing wind and seas.  Finally at eleven o’clock, I spoke to Anne saying that we appeared to be making no progress.  I suggested a retreat.  She agreed.

For a full hour we sloshed about parallel to the high seas.  I variously paddled forward and adjusted our balance and heading to avoid being swamped.  Our rental canoe was a 17 foot Grumman freighter.  It was a hog, but it served well under these conditions.  Reaching the beach we found an opening among scattered mangrove, pushed ashore, and hauled the boat up and out of the surf.  I extracted the folding chairs and we enjoyed a relaxed lunch.

We did not stay long.  Lostman’s River went northeast, out of our way.  We had a promised return of Friday afternoon to assume responsibilities at Heritage Cove.  I knew we would have difficulty retracing three days of paddling in two days.  Our departure was clean and we almost immediately turned into the mouth of Lostman’s River.  It was calm.  We cheered.  I had seen a group of kayaks at the mouth of the inlet and wondered at their direction.  We didn’t see them during our stop and assumed they had not gone into the Gulf. 

Lostman’s River is a tidal channel crossing a series of lakes or bays.  I suspected wind would be a nuisance in these widenings and was correct.  On entering First Bay we again faced that awful north wind and more white caps.  Entering from the south we had to cross to the north and exit to the northeast.  The shortest course would be to the northeast, but the wind and seas would have none of that.  We faced the wind and paddled furiously again.  In the distance along the north shore the kayakers were working east.  We might catch them and learn their course.

I was rather certain we were in Lostman’s River.  We were now on the chart again, but remember I did not have a chart past Lostman’s River.  Worst case was we were in a river farther east and most of these streams went east.  That would be bad.

Lostman’s River is not on the Wilderness Waterway and has no channel markers of any sort.  That makes navigation difficult even with a chart.  I thought someone in the group ahead might know these waters and save us time.  Stopping at inlets and outlets to study the chart and compass and set and keep a heading take time.  We were short of time.

The scenery and day, by the way, were lovely.  The dramatic clouds had vanished with the morning.  The sky was now that milky blue that characterizes high pressure in south Florida.  One could sense but see only in the shaking mangrove branches the tons and tons of northern air that was rolling south around and upon us.  This wind would settle and shift from north to northwest within 24 or 48 hours, but we would have to travel north and northwest over that same period to reach Chok.  Ugh!

At least in the bay the seas and wind decline as you cross.  At halfway I no longer feared for swamping, but only as the trees climbed overhead did the wind subside enough that I could change the heading.  The kayakers were taking full advantage of the wind break paddling almost through the swamp.  My slightly more aggressive course allowed us to catch them sooner than later.  As I guessed, it was a guided group.  She confirmed that we were indeed within the Lostman’s River.  They planned to camp at Lostman’s Five Bay and hoped to reach it by 3:30 p.m.  There would be open space there.  We could stay. 

That was good news and we considered it.  We paddled with the group off and on the rest of the afternoon.  Our boat was slower than theirs.  Kayaks are better in the wind than canoes, really better boats except that one gets wet in a kayak and can carry only minimal provisions.  Those folks had no folding chairs.  They were from North Carolina and would have made good company that evening.  They were touring slowly. 

We paddled firmly at times ahead of the group but in the end with them upon reaching the Lostman’s Five campsite.  We took a break there, rested, used the privy, studied the chart, and chatted with the guide.  She was reluctant to suggest we go on.  It was 3:30 p.m. There was a single campsite chickee a mile ahead.  This was the Plate Creek Chickee where we had spent our second night out.  If occupied we would be severely crowding the legal occupant.  Going there would scarcely get us closer to home.  The next site after that was Darwin’s Place where we lunched on our second day out.  I knew we could make to port from there in one day, but Darwin’s place was 6.5 miles from Lostman’s Five.  The guide suggested the paddle to Darwin’s Place was about two hours but could be three hours in this wind.

Going on made sense, but there were a few problems.  First was the wind which continued.  Crossing each bay had been a challenge.  We had, as you can guess from the names First Bay and Lostman’s Five Bay, been crossing them all along on this day.  We would start on by crossing from south to north on Lostman’s Five Bay.  A smaller lake, the waves were not as bad, but they still had to be watched.  Careless paddlers end up with swamped boats.  The wind would definitely slow us down, and we were tired.  I asked Anne her condition and she said she could go on if she had to.  That was not a good answer. 

Most important was the sunset.  It was to be at 5:58 p.m.  Day length is longer farther south in the winter, but it is still short in January and the sun drops like a rock below the horizon in this season.  That means it is dark by 6:30.  The moon was a day past full and so would rise early, but navigating island strewn bays is difficult enough in the daylight.  I didn’t know if we could do it under moonlight.  I was tired but refreshed from the break.  It seemed too early to quit.  We really needed to reach Fort Myers the next day.

So we pushed forth crossing Lostman’s Five Bay, Plate Creek Bay, Dad’s Bay, and the largest, Alligator Bay.  The wind was against us on each of them, but we had become hardened to its fury and more skillfully plowed forward.  After Alligator Bay we ran some distance along a channel known as Alligator Creek.  Bathed in the yellow glow of sunset the mangroves and amber waters were beaming and lovely.  Each of us enjoyed the vistas along its winding course.  We also enjoyed the break from the wind there.  The wind was now ebbing for evening, but was still a nuisance at every bay. 

Alligator Creek opened into Tarpon Bay and while crossing this water the sun slipped behind the mangrove forest and set.  I fretted at this and also that the chart did not show the location of Darwin’s Place.  We had stopped there for a lunch and I remembered it as a small cut out in the mangrove jungle.  It was small and would be easy to overlook in the dark.  I hoped someone would be camped there and burning a light.  I knew we had to traverse a small section of creek and turn into Cannon Bay after leaving Tarpon Bay.  The chart showed Cannon Bay as full of keys.  Our course would be to the northwest between various islands to find another creek that would take us past Darwin’s Place.  I wondered if I could find the route in the darkness.

The light was fading fast.  I could no longer make out bights, spits, keys, or channels.  All around was a faint darkness of mangrove forest below a brighter sky.  A star, probably Jupiter, was visible.  Glancing back I saw the moon rising.  This gave relief, but not much.  I turned the canoe so we could see it rise, bright yellow and almost full.  I turned us back on course and Anne made an important announcement.  She saw a reflection and believed it was the next channel marker.  We had not noticed reflectors on these poles before.  That was great news if she was right, and she was.  We passed marker 81 and entered a creek.  Soon we spotted a shining on marker 83 at the entrance to Cannon Bay, our last open water crossing.  This was good, but it was now dark and I could make out no features.  I had placed the compass on the floor in front of me between the centerline and a rib.  I put my headlamp against the compass.  I had turned the compass to provide a northwest heading before setting it down.  The chart was also on the floor, but I could not see that.

When Anne announced that we had come into open water I turned the canoe to box the compass needle and we began paddling.  The wind had eased and I thought we could maintain this heading without difficulty, but we had to traverse seven tenths of a mile of island filled water to reach the next marker at the entrance to the creek we wanted.  If we entered the wrong creek we would probably spend the night in the canoe, wet, cold, and miserable. 

I have slept only one night in a canoe.  I was dry, the night was mild, and the canoe was empty.  Still it was a miserable night.  Mosquitoes bothered me and the continuous movement and occasional bumping of the canoe against nearby snags kept me awake.  Rolling over was very difficult because the thwarts made it impossible to simply roll over.  I had to sit up to do that. 

It would be worse for Anne and me here.  Our canoe was loaded.  If we had to stop in the mangroves we would have to dump gear into the swamp.  Gear would be lost to the tide.  We could make a space to sleep, but we would be crowded and uncomfortable.  We would dry off, but we would be cold.  One or two cold nights follow the passage of a cold front in south Florida.  It might drop only to 40 degrees, but that is cold enough if you are sleeping on a wet metal floor.  The much warmer water in the bay would help, but even 70 degree water is too cold for a water bed.

I fretted that I had decided to proceed risking Anne’s and my safety so we could return on time.  Still, I knew I would have been fretting too had we stopped and sat for hours in the sunshine at Lostman’s Five when we could have been making up lost time.

I contemplated these things as we paddled blindly across the lake.  The moon rose higher in the sky.  At some point I turned off the light on the compass and looked ahead.  I saw what looked like a passage between two forested keys.  Perhaps, I thought, that is the correct path.  I turned the light back on and maintained our compass heading.  After what seemed an eternity Anne said that she thought she saw the flash of a reflector ahead.

Finding the marker was an enormous relief.  We now had a good chance of finding the campsite.  We paddled up to the pole so we could read the number, “86.” 

“Good,” I said.  I sat with the map showing the campground, the chart, and the compass.  The chart did not show the campsite.  The smaller scale map did, but locations are not shown accurately.  Darwin’s place appeared to be near marker 87 which should be about a quarter mile ahead.  I added, “The shoreline should force us to turn due north.  We follow the creek and look for Darwin’s Place on the left.”

After a minute or two I was about to suggest that Anne begin to turn her head to the left from time to time to look for the cutout into the mangrove forest that would be the campground when a flash of light appeared.  Then another shown and both went dark.  We heard voices.  I called out, “Is this Darwin’s Place?”  My query prompted a humorous response that I can’t remember.  I repeated the question sharply.  I feared we had come across a boat tied up along the channel.  That would help us but little.  Now a calm voice replied with a simple affirmative.  I was very, very glad.

I had to call again to ask where we should land.  The response came quickly and a light showed the steep beach.  We pushed in.  The water was calm and there was no need for a careful landing.  Anne climbed out and set the canoe.  I crawled across the gear and onto dry land.  We had left camp twelve hours earlier.  We were sore, exhausted, hungry, and cold with wet feet.  We conversed with the two parties that were there while finding a spot for the tent.  It would be tight upon another but comfortable on a sandy platform of the shell mound.  We began unloading and pulled the canoe above the high tide strand.  I threw the anchor out as well.  I never want the canoe to leave camp without me. 

We set up the tent and put on dry socks and sandals.  Then we made dinner and dined.  One camper, his name was Phillip, was a talker.  We maintained a conversation with him all that evening and the next morning before our departure.  We said little.  That evening the conversation continued for a minute or two after we retreated to our tent.  We just said goodnight and it ended.

After supper we set up the bedding and prepared to retreat.  There were no insects on this night.  The stars were glorious through the mangrove trees and over the creek.  The moon was spectacular.  Exhausted we climbed into bed.  The night would be cold but we were warm and so happy to be sleeping in our tent. 

I reviewed our route on the chart and pointed out to Anne that we would have to cross the wide Chevelier Bay the next morning.  That water had given us fits on the second day when a south wind impeded our progress.  Now we would face a north wind going north.  My rule for navigating these waters was working perfectly!  After that would come more bays and the largest water would be Chokoloskee Bay itself.  On the afternoon of the second day after the cold front there would be a stiff breeze there against us.  We would have to be careful.  Still, we should be able to come ashore by the middle of the afternoon if we were fit to paddle.  I was not certain of that.  I was feeling much stronger after five days of paddling, but I might be sore or injured from this strenuous day.  We would see in the morning how we were.  Meanwhile we enjoyed a pleasant sleep snuggled in a warm bag at Darwin’s Place in the Everglades.

Arthur Darwin was the last of the old time residents in the Everglades.  He settled there on Opossum Key in 1945 when 70 years old and died there in 1977 at 103.  His age is uncertain and one report has him dying at the age of 112.  He had no electricity or running water.  Said he liked the place.  Grew bananas for market.  One of his ten children settled in Everglades City, but Darwin was a true hermit.  His tiny block house was demolished by the park service after his death.  The campground there now bears his name.

We left Opossum Key at dawn.  Phillip kept up the conversation until we were out of earshot.  He may have continued the conversation after that.  I don’t know.  We reached and crossed Chevelier Bay against a mild but rising breeze.  Good news was that the tide was with us.  The tides in this region are difficult to predict.  They come from the Florida Bay and Gulf of Mexico up the various rivers and through the so called bays and lakes.  Since all the waters interconnect, tidal flows meet at various locations.  These locations are unrecorded and may be variable.  The wind can push water out of the shallow lakes in various directions and so redirect the tidal flows unexpectedly.  The times indicated by the tidal charts are only suggestions.

Regardless of the explanation, we were glad that the tidal flow was largely with us on the last day.  In the lakes the tidal direction is a slight factor, but in the creeks the tide can sweep you forward or stop your progress.  On this day it would carry us into the relatively open water of Chokoloskee Bay.  But first we crossed Chevelier Bay, traversed a section of the Chatham River, crossed Last Huston Bay, Huston Bay, Oyster Bay, an unnamed bay (Anne and Chuck’s Bay, anyone?) and Sunday Bay.  Then we slid with the tide out the Lopez River.  We stopped for a brief lunch at the Lopez River campground where we had lunched on the first day.  There the clearly semi-literate, Spanish, Mr. Lopez scrawled “Lopes” on the “tabby” concrete of his new cistern at the end of the 19th Century.  Today his plantation, as the various others, is overgrown except for the small openings maintained as campsites.  Upland trees, including Florida Fish-poison Tree, Cabbage Palm, and Cat-claw Blackbead, grow on this and other shell mounds.  This vegetation contrasts sharply, to the trained eye, with the mangrove forest that makes up most of the swamp forests here.

Leaving Lopez Place the tidal flow had stopped and the tide was very low.  We swept past bars we had not noticed coming up the river.  We followed the west shore to our starboard as the river broke up meeting the Gulf.  We were entering the region called The Ten Thousand Islands.  Our route was to the island of Chokoloskee, a large (0.3 square mile) key that had been filled to an elevation of as much as 20 feet by the Caloosa Indians.  Such high and developed land is rather conspicuous within this region of water and mangroves.  We were delighted when it came into view. 

As expected the wind was now up, but only 5 to 10 mph.  The day before the winds were twice that and caused us considerable difficulties.  Still, we had to cross almost a mile and a half of open water.  The bay itself is some four miles long and so I wisely set a course for the center of Chokoloskee wanting it to give us protection from the highest seas.  There were some good ones.  Several sets gave us excitement, but we were now experienced in handling the boat in the waves.  The wind was still rising when we pulled up to the lovely house that had provided our heading and we turned along the docks that lined the shore of the now prosperous community.  We commented on the various homes and then the classy motorhomes at the RV park of which our marina was a part.  We pulled in there at about 3:30 p.m.  Better late than never, I thought.

We took the necessary time to properly unload our gear, dispose of the trash, and beach the canoe before checking in and recovering our deposit.  The car started just fine and we cruised on back to Fort Myers feeling elated at the end of the trip but also with our bodies metabolizing in exercise mode.  Our muscles had been working for six days.  They expected to be working still but were not.  Not moving, soreness would set in.  But that would be OK.  Our bodies could have a few days of rest.  They could use it.  Still, we felt like we could paddle across anything now.

A great adventure had ended.