Little Talbot Island

We got off the Interstate north of Jacksonville and meandered - along with the flow of shipping containers riding the backs of semi trucks - toward the sea, the nearby skyline dominated by a pair of massive, narrow-waisted concrete cylinders- cooling towers for a coal plant that supplies power to the city just across the river. Other than the dense cumulus overflowing from the stacks, the sky was mostly clear and blue, a perfect Saturday morning. Rebecca and I were on our way to a Meetup.

The road followed the St. Johns River, finally turning north just near the end, and here we turned-off at Huguenot Park, a large city park occupying the north shore of the river’s inlet. Here, a jetty extends far into the sea, providing a straight, deep channel for all manner of ships, including the Navy fleet just across the river. We knew we were in the right place when we saw a kayak atop a car, and a moment later, someone waving to us.

We got our boats and gear together on a beach beside a large tidal lagoon, and after meeting everyone, headed upstream on the rising tide. There were four others, all guys, probably my age or older, and they all seemed to know each other pretty well. This would be the first (and shortest) of 8 “day” trips ranging from 13 to 77 miles, and in addition to acquiring some local knowledge, we hoped to meet a few other paddlers.

As we followed the turns of Myrtle Creek, we talked about favorite places to paddle and learned a bit about our companions. One had paddled the east coast of Australia. Another was training for the upcoming Everglades Challenge, a 300 or so mile endurance race. He shot out ahead of the group and stayed there for the rest of the trip.

The creek narrowed, and after a bridge, began to oxbow into tight twists and turns through a salt marsh. On our right was Little Talbot Island. The plan, if conditions permitted, was to paddle around Little Talbot, and it looked like that’s what we would do. Andy, the trip’s planner, had gauged the tide well, and we were soon propelled northward by outgoing current in the widening creek. At the creek mouth, we took a break on a sand spit. Rebecca and I had been here on a couple of previous explorations; it was beginning to feel like we were getting the lay of the land.

--> After lunch we headed out around the north end of Little Talbot, propelled by outgoing current. At the mouth, the current hits the incoming swell, creating a an area where waves steepen. We’d taken Cody here to get a taste of surf, but now we moved through it and soon enough the rough water gave way to calm seas. The group was a bit spread-out by now, and the ones in front seemed to be making a beeline for the south end, far offshore. Seeming to read my mind, Andy suggested that the scenery was nice closer to shore and we began moving that way.

We mostly paddled just outside of the surf zone, and since no protocol about catching an occasional wave had been established… well, I caught a wave and rode it in. The wave crumbled and I turned and bongo-slid sideways in the foam pile most of the way to the beach- a fun ride. As I turned back toward the open ocean, I saw an upside-down kayak, and a rescue in progress. I bounced through a few waves on my way out and when I got there, clipped-in and towed the rescue to deeper water, out of the surf zone.

We stayed in deeper water for the remaining miles, until we found our way back in through Fort George Inlet. We paddled against the outgoing current for a short distance and saw someone familiar on the bridge- the racer-in-training who had disappeared ahead of us while the rescue was in progress. Soon we made it back to the beach where we had launched- still early afternoon, and Rebecca and I explored a bit more in the car before meandering home.

Saint Marys, Georgia

It's been more than two weeks now since we tied our kayaks to the roof of our car in Stonington with sub-zero temps numbing our fingertips. Afterward we joined a couple of other subdued diners at the Harbor Cafe for our last dinner in Stonington. We'd been trying to get on the road for a week, but since it was so cold, we decided to spend one last night sleeping on the fold-out futon in our now-empty, now-former apartment. The car was packed: two Delphins and the Cetus on the roof, paddling and camping gear making a solid wall of duffels in the back, with the middle seat crammed with whatever clothing, household odds and ends and art supplies we could fit. Just before dawn, with sea smoke drifting over the harbor, Rebecca positioned herself in the passenger seat with one last garbage bag full of clothing donations to drop-off in Blue Hill... and we were launched on our new journey.

There were stops along the way: coffee at the Blue Hill Coop, and breakfast at Nate's, sitting beside the woodstove with sea smoke still lingering over the Union River, just down the hill. Then it was all-out "lets get south" driving until late that night, when we stopped in Virginia, where our friend Ron was house-sitting. It wasn't enough south; in the morning, the trees were coated with ice, lit with brilliant sunshine.

After another twelve hours of driving, we made it to Georgia on a cool, rainy night. When you get off the highway in Kingsland, Route 40 is a gauntlet of big box stores and strip malls stretching most of the way to Saint Marys, but then the road narrows and takes a turn into the older part of town. First we drove down to the harbor and took a look out over the dark river flowing past. About half a mile inland, we found the house that the company had rented and would become our new home- a humble place to be sure, but the porch light was on for us, and the plastic Adirondack chair on the porch felt welcoming. We unloaded the car, spread our camping pads and sleeping bags on the floor and slept, hardly waking when Ryan and Sarah arrived from Chicago hours later.

In the morning we made introductions- it was our first meeting with Sarah, but we'd met Ryan at some paddling events. We'd had a lot of emails and conference calls with them, getting on the same page, planning how we would do this. Although they were starting the business and are the principal partners, they would be here for only a few days, leaving a pile of gear and a trailer of kayaks. A van rumbled up and we met Cody, our intern, finishing his degree at Western Illinois University. Later that day, after a lot of errands and running around, we launched our kayaks (our first paddle as Sea Surf & SUP) near Fort Clinch on Amelia Island, but we didn't get far before a procession of military boats and ships came down the river, escorting a submarine. A Coast Guard Patrol boat arrived and ordered us off the water, so we watched the sub pass from shore- we didn't mind; this was something new, to be sure.

Over the next couple of days we kept busy checking-out places to paddle, meeting people and just generally finding our way around.

Ryan and Sarah went back to Chicago.

We had a day-off to catch our breath. It felt like we'd had few such days since last summer. Our time over the previous months had been focused on my finishing my guidebook and guiding the gallery toward its final days as we looked toward our next step. Our life in Stonington was fairly public, and every day people asked us what was next and seemed to not believe us when we answered that we didn't know.

We had certainly considered Stonington our home, but we waited to see what opportunities arose as we prepared for the possibility that we would need to move out of the apartment and go someplace new. Over nearly a dozen years in our apartment, we'd become dug-in. The gallery had been our public, thousand square-foot living room... sort-of a fantasy of how we might like to live, surrounded by art with a view to the harbor. But upstairs our small, poorly-arranged apartment was packed to the gills, a third of it dedicated to Rebecca's work space for painting, and at its core, a couple of well-worn couches with a coffee table and television where we retreated at the end of the day. We had a series of yard sales and I sold books on ebay. We gave a lot away, carloads of books to the library, carloads of clothing and other stuff to the donation places. In a way, I mused, getting out on the water in a kayak was an escape from all this stuff. You just take what you need and your mind focuses on your natural surroundings. We watched a lot of good kayaking days go by, just dealing with stuff.

It was a difficult time. We had our last show in the gallery and closed by mid-December. By then we knew we were headed to Georgia. We focused on moving out of the apartment, carefully filling a nearby storage space. By Christmas we had terrible colds, and then a strain of flu that had been going around. We each spent our requisite high-fever days on the couch, staring at the piles of stuff around us that needed to go somewhere. Rebecca still managed a couple of Saturday afternoons at the Bar Harbor pool. Facebook friends posted photos from wintery excursions, but the thought of getting out for a paddle seemed a distant luxury. And all the while we looked around at Stonington, savoring our exchanges with friends, already nostalgic for the life we had there, because it was over. In those last days, friends really came through, taking away stuff that we didn't know what to do with, bringing us food, even lending us a home on the water where we stayed after the apartment was in total disarray.

Finally came that evening with the apartment emptied, car packed, and we tied the boats to the roof of our car. Only a few days later, we were here in our new home in Saint Marys, Georgia.

We have much to learn here, much to do. By Georgia standards, it isn't terribly warm yet, so our real season is yet to begin. This gives us time to explore, a process much like researching a guidebook, except that I'm seldom alone. In addition to instruction, we'll have a handful of trips to offer, so we've been trying them out in different conditions with different tides. We've been trying alternate trips- Plan B trips for windy days or trips for kids. We've been discovering the great variety of paddling we have within an hour's drive: marshy creeks, swampy brackish creeks, and sandy, surf-pounded beaches.

Cumberland Island is the big attraction. About five or six miles down-river from Saint Marys, this 18-mile-long barrier island is home to Cumberland Island National Seashore, as well as several private enclaves. There's sandy beaches on the outside, marsh and creeks on the sheltered side, and in the middle, plenty of history, feral horses and gorgeous walking trails overhung with live oak and spanish moss.

Or you could just paddle out there to hang-out beneath a palm tree.

The tides are a huge factor here, and they dictate what you can or can't do.

I've loved discovering some of the smaller creeks through the marshes. One day, as we prepared to enter an inauspicious opening in the marsh, right beside a public park in Saint Marys, a local woman we'd already met shouted to us that it didn't go anywhere. Of course I'd already checked-out the satellite maps (you can't rely on charts). We told her we just wanted to explore, and of course we found our way through (at high tide) to another creek, that brought us- well, to another creek. Last night I paddled solo through the same creek in the moonlight. That was after I mistakenly went down a couple of other passages that didn't, as the woman said, go anywhere.

In addition to the paddling, there's been much to learn, business-wise. Cody arrives each day and we delve into the mysteries of spreadsheets and marketing. I'm still resisting Twitter, but my resistance is fading. Rebecca and I have taken the plunge and joined most of humanity with new iPhones - these didn't make much sense in Stonington, but now they're indispensable- even as a navigation tool.

So... it's a new chapter. In December, I chatted with a reader of this blog (an extremely accomplished, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist by whom I feel humbled and am amazed that he's interested in my words about kayaking) who pondered whether this was the end of Sea Kayak Stonington. I replied that it wouldn't be, at least at first, since I could still easily end up paddling as much in Maine as I have in the past- just not constantly. We'll see. For now I'm overwhelmed with all there is to see and learn here, and I'll share it when I can.

Boca Chita Key to Key West: A Few Snapshots

I sat beside the lighthouse, watching the sun set between a nuclear power plant and a small mountain made of garbage. Eight miles of Biscayne Bay lay between me and that silhouetted shoreline where I’d begun paddling that morning after launching from Biscayne National Park headquarters. I’d followed the wild, mangrove shoreline north a few miles toward Miami, before taking an abrupt right turn across the bay. A couple of hours later, I could see the lighthouse on Boca Chita Key. I paddled toward it.

I was at the start of a trip I’d been dreaming about. I’d read as much as I could, and stared at the charts for hours on end, trying to anticiapate what I would find in each area: where to camp, the dangers and the sights, how the currents flow. I wanted to paddle the entire chain of the Florida Keys, north to south, a distance of about 150 miles, and since Rebecca was busy with her artist’s residency in Everglades National Park, I would do it solo.

I’d visualized that first day’s crossing for too long. I’d gone to the park headquarters and looked across. From the second story I could see the dim outline of Elliot Key across the bay, but from kayak height, all I could see was that aqua-turquoisey water surface stretching away to infinity. There were vast shallow areas that were a hazard to go around, but also a refuge from larger boats. I had my gear ready for a couple of days before the winds let-up enough to go for it. All that fretting paid-off; I followed my bearings exactly to the markers and found my way across without a hitch. That night at Boca Chita Key I sat in the dark, gazing at the city lights, savoring even the power plant, which would be a constant landmark for the next couple of days.

I established my routine by the third day: get up in the dark, launch at sunrise, and paddle 21 to 24 miles to my next campsite. I got a little lost in Jones Lagoon, a shallow patch of mangroves encased in islands; maybe not a good idea with a full day ahead, but I’ve started to enjoy the contrast between ocean paddling and poking around skinny water and overgrown passages. Later, I passed the exclusive Ocean Reef Club, a gated community that takes up the entire northern end of Key Largo. It was a fitting welcome to the populated portion of the Keys: huge houses with huge powerboats coming and going from the canals. The club emanated a constant din of children’s voices, splashing and distant motors. I drifted in among a family on short kayaks, the wife admitting nervousness about the channel up ahead, where someone’s personal mini cruise ship was motoring in. The husband snapped at her while the kids drifted into the wake of the large boat. I half-expected that, at any moment, someone would point at me and shriek, like in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, revealing the intruder in their midst. It was a feeling that would linger. The surprising thing though- and I found this throughout the Keys, was that, just beyond such a heavily-developed area, the mangroves began, and for the rest of that day I passed only a handful of houses before I found a campsite on an island.

The next day, to avoid some of the wind, I headed into Largo Sound and rode the current through the Adams Cut to the bay side. Here, I passed beneath Route One, which would be a presence all the way to Key West. For a few moments, I had a hint of what road-based visitors to the Keys experience: the hum of traffic, a billboard advertising a fireworks shop, and oh, by the way- it’s all for sale.

But the antidote is a short paddle away. Just off of Dusenbury Creek, I went into a section of mangrove tunnels called “The Grottoes”. There, in the leaf-filtered sunlight among the gothically arching prop roots, I found a stretch of calm, quiet water- a temporary respite before following the remaining, mostly built-up Key Largo coastline.

Later in the afternoon, I rode the current in Tavernier Creek back to the ocean side, and found another campsite that I shared with some wood rats. I woke a couple of times to discover one of the rats crawling up the mosquito netting above my head. It’s also worth mentioning that at these less-established, not so legit campsites, I tend to watch the rising tide with a little anxiousness. After all, it’s the full moon- just how how high will the water rise?

Plantation Key, Windley Key, Upper Matecumbe Key... private homes, motels & resorts, boat rentals, helicopter rides... One mile after another, I paddled, keeping the Keys on my right. As the day wore on the waterfront crowded with more people: couples in lounge chairs staring out at the sea, kids, spring-breakers... bikinis, drinks, big fishing rods, short plastic boats. Kiteboarders zipping out across the waves, occasionally taking to the air. It unrolled on my right as I paddled past, all entertainment for the solitary paddler. Ate lunch on Indian Key, walking the paths among the ruins of a former town.

By now, I’d become accustomed to sharks and rays passing beneath. At first I noticed small sharks in shallows, and occasionally some larger ones that circled around indifferently below. The rays undulated gracefully, taking-off abruptly when I approached.

One of the best deals for the paddler in the Keys are the primitive sites at Long Key State Park, which are held each day specifically for kayakers arriving by sea. Eight bucks gets you a sheltered platform with a picnic table, bathrooms and an outdoor shower... which you’ll need if you arrive at low tide, as I did. It’s a long, muddy carry. That night I sat and sipped my tea with the sea lapping calmly just below, sparkling beneath a full moon. Before dawn, one cruise ship after another hummed past on the horizon, headed for Key West.

The weather forecast for my sixth paddling day called for northeast winds picking-up in the afternoon. It also happened to be a day that would take me across some fairly open water south of some long bridge spans. The tide flows between the bay side and the ocean, squeezing through the gaps to create some strong currents and potentially dicey paddling, especially if the wind works against those currents. I’d begun thinking of the Seven Mile Bridge as the crux of the trip, potentially the most difficult section. If I made it that far, I ought to make it to Key West.

I made the Long Key Viaduct crossing first thing and progressed until mid-morning, when the wind increased, pushing me along, one hotel beach after another, guests looking up to see me surf past, until ahead lay a three-mile open stretch: the Vaca Key Bight. I tethered my paddle to my wrist, and headed across. It was a bit rough, but not rough enough to call it a day.

At the end of Boot Key, the Seven-Mile Bridge stretched away to the horizon with no end in sight. I could see my destination though: Molasses Key, where I would camp, over four miles away. I had little sense of what conditions lay ahead, so I plunged ahead, and it got rough. The waves behind me grew, and soon I became sadly aware of my kayak’s limitations. The boat was heavily-loaded, with over four gallons of drinking water in the cockpit. I was riding a little low. It’s one thing to ride waves in a following sea, but another when those waves start slipping over the coaming, pooling in the lap of my sprayskirt, slowly filling the cockpit. There wasn’t much I could do about it. With one hand I’d pull the skirt up and get the water out, but within a minute I had another gallon of water in my lap. I watched the bridge to gauge my progress. A large sea turtle surfaced and gazed at me for a moment before disappearing below, into its element. I could feel the added water in the boat making it less responsive. Somewhere in the middle, where the current was probably greatest, I found myself in a mogul field of waves. I focused on staying upright; forward progress was a luxury I could hardly think about.

But I got through it. I stayed focused on Molasses Key. Behind it, more land became visible, and eventually I could make out individual trees, and then I passed into a shallow area. I took a long drink of water and rested before paddling in to find my campsite.

I stayed on Molasses Key for two nights. As promised, the wind continued to pick-up: 25, 30-knot gusts. Thunderstorms threatened, mountains of high clouds building and passing by. A couple of powerboats anchored offshore, but the people in them never waded-in. I finished my serious book before lunch and began on the thriller. I made coffee and strolled around the small island, walking out over the ancient coral, surveying my little world from different angles. The wind hissed through the trees, weaving its sound with the flow of traffic on the bridge, a mile away. A double semi-truck of Coca-Cola heads for Key West, followed shortly by an identical red truck heading north. I’d watch the bridge and just space-out, finally breaking free, as if from hypnosis.

Maybe the isolation on Molasses Key was responsible for my choice to head to a KOA Kampground for my last night. After another long day of dodging the wind, I got into somewhat sheltered water and the usual pattern of overly-developed stretches alternating with wild mangroves. I was tired, and the prospect of a hot shower, dinner at a restaurant, a swim and a soak in a hot tub sounded good. Besides, the camera and cell phone batteries were almost shot.

Shortly after arriving, I wished that I’d just gone to the primitive site and stayed in my own, unshowered world. “It’s quiet compared to last week,” people told me, since spring break was winding-down. But it still felt like a tailgate party where the main attraction is warmth. A nearby trailer cranked classic hits all afternoon (which I found myself enjoying) and the shirtless guys with bandannas on their heads stood around with tightly gripped beers over their bellies, comparing tattoos or sunburns. I had a talk with a nice guy who really just wanted to talk about his hometown in Illinois, and when he finally figured out that I’d paddled there in that kayak, offered me a marguerita. Sorry, no, don’t drink, I had to say, as if confirming that I truly was from a different planet.

Freedom lay just beyond the mangroves, but few could see it. I slipped out quietly before sunrise and paddled the rest of the way to Key West. I got to the end of the island and turned back, waiting for Rebecca at the Southernmost Point, a large painted buoy on shore, where visitors took turns having their picture taken. There is nowhere to land nearby, so I drifted in the small waves, watching occasional person-sized sharks swim by below, until finally Rebecca appeared at the fence and waved. It was my turn for a picture.

9 days (1 weather day) 8 nights, about 157 nautical miles.

The Everglades

In March, Rebecca and I strapped the kayaks onto the car and drove down to Florida. The kayak excursions deserve a bit more space than I want to give them in the blog, so I’ll just hit upon some highlights. Similarly, last fall I blogged a synopsis of my trip with Todd from Stonington to West Quoddy Head, but a detailed account will appear in Ocean Paddler Magazine. I’ll let you know when it comes out.


The heart of our trip was a fourteen-day, 170-mile excursion through the Everglades. To do this, we drove for four days, arriving in Flamingo, in Everglades National Park, where we stayed in the campground for a couple of nights while we prepared. It’s amazing how many people want to talk to Rebecca about her kayak (and how few want to talk to me about mine). The usual conversation: “yes, she built it, from a kit, a Pygmy Coho, mahogany plywood, seventeen and a half feet, they say it takes eighty hours but...” Well, we meet a lot of friendly people that way, at gas stations and rest stops, all the way to the campground.

Our route: week #1 in red, week #2 in yellow

For the first week we paddled along the Gulf coast, up to the northern end of the park at Everglades City. This area was what attracted me to paddling in the Everglades: the long undeveloped stretches of beach on the Gulf of Mexico. I was certainly more comfortable with the open ocean than with the thought of what lay “inside”: the maze-like paths through the mangroves teeming with creatures capable of eating people.

Ever feel like this?

Well, that was my impression, and the pythons had been in the news a lot lately. It seemed only a matter of time before a twenty-something-foot python swallowed a seventeen-foot kayak, complete with kayaker and gear. They were, after all, eating eight-foot alligators. We could have also worried about the sharks in the Gulf, or maybe those nasty South American drug dealers with chainsaws we’d seen in “Scarface”. But why worry? We’d survived nearly two-thousand miles of I-95 and the horrors of the multitasking SUV drivers.


We camped at the beaches along Cape Sable, then dipped into the Little Shark River for our first taste of the mangroves. It was a good taste- just enough to ease some of our uneasiness and get a feel for navigating among the many confusing channels of the delta. I hadn’t given much thought to the mangrove trees, viewing them more as a weedy obstruction- something difficult to paddle or walk through. But these were forests of tall, majestic trees that had adapted to grow where others couldn’t, and paddling among them was to float upon a watery forest floor with arching support roots echoing the shapes of the canopy overhead.


We encountered few other people. Our first three campsites coincided with those of Joel Beckwith, a kayak guide for Florida Bay Outfitters, and two German women. Joel spends his summers in our stomping grounds, guiding on Mt. Desert, so we had a lot to talk about, like his 500-mile Sea of Cortez expedition which you can check-out on YouTube.





After six nights on the “outside”, we paddled in to Everglades City, where we replenished our water supply and obtained our wilderness permit for the return trip to Flamingo. Now we were committed to “inside” paddling and all it entailed: long breaks to photograph wildlife, the occasional powerboats zipping by on the Wilderness Waterway, and easier conditions than on the ocean.


As much as we wanted solitude, the few people we met made for a more interesting time: a pair of canoeists at Lopez River, a group on a motorboat-assisted guided trip at Darwin’s Place, a father and son at Harney River Chickee. The group took us along on a pre-dawn excursion in the powerboat to watch thousands of birds make their morning commute from Cannon Bay out toward the Gulf. The father and son recounted various paddling trips, making it seem there would never be enough time to do all the paddling there is to do.


We returned briefly to the “outside” to camp again at Highland Beach, which was a favorite spot on the way up. Our first visit had been solitary and quiet, punctuated by long walks on the beach. This time, a group of powerboats had anchored off the shore, and at night, their bright lanterns and bonfire were hard to miss.


The “Nightmare” route is a passage from the Broad River to the Harney River through a tangle of small creeks that run dry at low tide. Before, I thought “no way”. I didn’t relish the idea of mosquitoes and spiderwebs and whatever else might be hanging off those low-hanging branches. But my attitude had changed. It’s funny how something shifts from being scary and intimidating to being more fun than you could have imagined. A small alligator (we’d seen a lot of them by then) greeted us at the entrance, and we spent the next several hours making tight turns, ducking beneath branches and trying to keep track of our location on the chart.


Our last three nights were spent at chickees, small roofed platforms with just enough room to pitch a tent. They make for clean camping- none of the sand and dirt we’d been living in, but made it a challenge to stretch one’s legs. Aside from a lunch break on a small shell mound, we didn’t walk on actual land again until we pulled up at the boat ramp in Flamingo.


We took our time for those last few miles in the Buttonwood Canal. It all seems so immediate while you’re there, but you never know if or when you’ll be there again. Suddenly, that shower you’ve looked forward to for two weeks doesn’t seem so important, and even those ice cream bars at the marina can wait. Before you know it, you're back home with thousands of photos to go through, struggling to explain what it was like in brief conversations, and scheming ways to get back out there.