Everglades National Park Paddle Trip Report
November 2 – 9, 2019
by Tracy Hays
Tracy and Janet and our guest Judy paddled the 99 mile Wilderness Waterway Trail from Everglades City to Flamingo.
Day 1, Saturday November 2nd. We left Cape Coral FL at 5 a.m. and drove to Everglade City and dropped off our boats. We then ran our shuttle to Flamingo and left our pick-up vehicle there. It’s a long shuttle and by the time we got our boats packed and launched it was 2 pm. We paddled across Chokoloskee Bay to the Smallwood Store and Museum in a moderate breeze and current. The solo canoeist on this trip was having trouble controlling her boat in these conditions. Having paddled the Wilderness Waterway previously I knew that conditions would be much worse than this at some point in this trip and it was decided that this would not be a safe trip for this paddler. We toured the museum which is really cool place with early history of this area and then returned to our put in at Everglade City to bid farewell to the solo canoeist. This was a tough decision but the absolute correct one. We set up camp at the put in because it was nearly dark.
Day 2. We launched at 7:30 am after meeting some folks from the Southwest Florida Kayak Meetup who were getting ready for a day paddle in the opposite direction. We need to make 20 miles today to get back on schedule and reach our reserved campsite because we had lost a paddle day yesterday. We stopped for lunch at Lopez River camp and made it to Darwin Place camp, a ground site at 5:30 pm. It was a tough day battling head winds and cross winds causing small swells with some white caps parallel to our kayaks. Today we paddled Chokoloskee Bay, Lopez River, Crooked Creek Sunday Bay, Oyster Bay, Huston Bay and Last Huston Bay and Chevalier Bay before finally reaching Darwin’s Place Camp.
Day 3. Today was a scheduled tough 19 Mile paddle because I thought the two previous days would be easy. We made it to Rogers River Chickee about 3:30 p.m. We paddled Cannon Bay, Tarpon Bay, Alligator Creek, Alligator Bay and Dad’s Bay where we saw a large pod of dolphins doing dolphins stuff. We paddled Platte Creek, Platte Creek Bay, Lostman’s Five Bay Two Island Bay, Onion Key Bay, Big Lostman’s Bay and Rogers River. By the time we reached camp we were exhausted. Luckily we had some vitamin I and vitamin F to help dull our pain. That’s Ibuprofen and Fireball for those who may wonder. Just after we set up our tents on both sides of the chickee a fishing boat pulls up and they also had a permit to camp here. We had to crowd all of our stuff onto one side of the chickee. We thought it was BS that they were able to get a permit for here the same day as us, and we got our permit days before they did. A typical government screw up I guess.
Day 4. We had an awesome sunrise this morning and paddled down Rogers River and Broad River to our camp at Broad River, another ground site. It was nice to have an easy day and relax and watch the fish and birds from the dock here. There was a scary frog living inside the toilet paper dispenser in the porta-john that would land on your hand as you unrolled the paper. That gave the girls a start more than once. There seemed to be a lot going on all night — fish jumping, owls hooting and who knows what else was doing its thing in the dark. It can be tough keeping your imagination in check here.
Day 5. Our whole trip was timed around this day as we needed to be here one hour before high tide at the Shark River entrance in the early AM so we could make it through the Nightmare during daylight hours. The Nightmare is only passable at high tide and is a section of the Wilderness Waterway trail that is a tight winding Mangrove tunnel. Only canoes and kayaks are able to get through here because it is so narrow. We made it through the maze with some difficulty maneuvering around many obstacles, then through Broad Creek which is perhaps even more difficult to maneuver through than the Nightmare. Broad Creek has everything the Nightmare has except a cool name. For me this was the highlight of the trip. We made it to Harney River chickee by 12:30 and relaxed the rest of the day watching birds fly by, fish jump, dolphins at play and watched the alligator that was watching us. We did some laundry in the river and also bathed in it, despite the alligator, while one of us would stay on “alligator watch”. We took turns retrieving laundry and chairs that kept blowing into the river, and finally got a little smarter about tying everything down. After dark and all through the night this place really comes alive with fish jumping and dolphins splashing chasing them.
Day 6. Today we paddled to the Oyster Bay chickee by way of Harney River, Shark River and Oyster Bay with a lunch stop at Shark River chickee. The noseeums were really bad at Oyster Bay. It was great weather for paddling 15 miles today.
Day 7. We paddled 10 miles today through Oyster Bay and Joe River to South Joe River chickee for the night. There was no land to stop to rest on, before reaching camp. The best we could do was to stand in 3 feet of water to eat lunch. It was another beautiful day, got here early afternoon and relaxed the rest of the day. Late in the day we discovered our cell phones work here so we were able to get a weather report which looks bad for tomorrow. So we realized too late we should have paddled the last 10 or so miles out today but didn’t.
Day 8. We got up before daylight to a windy morning and were off before 7 am. The wind was not supposed to pick up until late morning, giving us time to get across the big open water crossing but the weather does not always cooperate. We stuck to the north side of Joe River, which is a half mile wide in some places, to avoid some of the Northeast wind. We had a scary crossing where there is a narrow opening to White Water Bay that exposed us to 5 miles of open water to the north. By now the wind had really picked up as we tried to paddle southeast to the south shore of White Water Bay to get to Tarpon Creek and Coot Bay. This was a long open water crossing that didn’t look too bad, until you were out in it. Every time we turned a little South our boats would be parallel to the three and occasional four foot waves with wind at our sides. It was blowing so hard it felt like we were paddling through wet concrete. This crossing was painfully slow and seemed to take forever. Because we had such a tough time turning south, we paddled mostly east and overshot Tarpon Creek, our exit by three-quarters of a mile. When we realized this and turned back, we now we had a following sea which is also a little scary but not nearly as hard to make progress. At Tarpon Creek, two fishermen had just landed a 100 pound grouper that they released. We crossed Coot Bay then down Buttonwood Canal and our adventure ended at the Flamingo boat ramp. We were exhausted but happy.