Pam Gowdy, Ben Quaintance, Rory Gleadhill and Marion Gleadhill paddled 84 miles over 8 days through the northern half of Everglades National Park. The late January weather was warm and mostly clear. We paddled through several small creeks and large open bays each day. Compass navigation and attention to the tides was a big factor throughout the trip. Because the water in the Everglades is brackish we had to start the trip with 16 gallons of fresh water in each tandem canoe along with all our food, and camping gear. We used ground campsites that were on old Indian shell mounds. One site had small wooded tent platforms because it was quite low. Every site had a Port-O-Potty and most had docks. Late evening and early mornings were thick with mosquitos, but we were prepared with full bug shirts, a bug shelter and Thermacell bug repellers. There were no bug issues during the day.
We left the Everglades city Ranger Station by mid morning at high tide and headed southeast to the Turner River to Hurddles Creek and across three open bays to the Lopez river and the Lopez campsite. The next morning we headed to The Watson Place campsite following the Wilderness Waterway to the Chatham River. Here we saw our first alligator swim by.
On our third day we followed the Wilderness Waterway across six open bays to the Lostman’s Five camp. The next day we headed south along the waterway then headed east across Lostman’s Bay and up Rocky Creek to the Willy Willy campsite. An alligator warning was posted on this site’s Port-O-Potty door. We never saw the alligator.
On our fifth day we headed south into Rocky Creek Bay, rejoined the Waterway and headed north through a series of creeks and bays to the Lostmans’s Five site. Day six took us back to Watson’ Place. Day seven took us back to the Lopez River camp by way of an unnamed creek to Huston Bay to Oyster Bay to Sunday Bay, to Crooked Creek and into the Lopez River. We headed back to the Everglades Ranger Station to end the trip on a falling tide. We headed west to the Gulf, paddled around Chokoloskee Island in very shallow water and northwest to the take out.
We had great weather, moderate winds, several grand sunsets, saw many wading birds, a few alligators and lots and lots of morning and evening mosquitos.