Day 4: Everglades City to Rogers River Bay Chickee, 38 miles
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Even interrupted sleep was welcome, given that I was very tired. Soon the first gray light of dawn appeared. I woke up with a snail crawling up my wet pants, and Lauren had a mangrove crab for a sleeping companion. DeadCat and FeralCat paddled past. DeadCat said that FeralCat was not feeling well and would probably drop out at Checkpoint 2.
We paddled out into the bay to get away from the skeeters, and had a relaxing breakfast of yesterday's snack bag goodies with leftover thermos mocha. Mom and Dad Fry greeted us at the Park Office ramp around 7 AM. We cleaned up in the bathroom and refilled our water while we waited for 8 AM. We had 22 liters of water, which would have to last us 100 miles to Flamingo.
Ranger Dave had seen Watertribers before, and he knew the drill. He asked if we would be going through the Nightmare so he could advise us on timing the tide. He applied the offsets to the tide table and advised that we start through at midnight tonight or noon tomorrow. We were flattered that he thought we could cover the 50 miles to the Nightmare entrance by midnight, but noon tomorrow sounded like a nice schedule. Normally the Park recommends allowing eight days to paddle the 100 mile Wilderness Waterway, we were proposing to do it in two days. It's nice when people don't think you're crazy.
AlexO was getting his permit at the same time we were (just out of the frame of the picture). In retrospect, we should have camped longer at LuLu and waited for slack high tide to come in as he did, and thereby avoided the mangrove bivvy; oh well, you live and learn.
We paddled the 2.5 miles to Checkpoint 2, and took Chief's advice to land at the north end of the beach to minimize the legendary Chokoloskee mud.
The smiling face of checkpoint captain NorthernLight greeted us, a fellow Michigan paddler and EC veteran. AlexO, our coincidental companion, can be seen in this photo as well. NorthernLight informed us that NightNavigator and WhiteCaps, and also MicroTom and WaterLilly had passed through the checkpoint at 2 AM, while we were floating around looking for a place to tie up. They had pushed hard and got their permits before the park office closed the previous day. This is where they put a gap on us.
After a brief stop, we paddled around Chokoloskee island with the catamarans heading back out to the Gulf. One was filling a cooler with ice; it's a different experience for everyone!
The outgoing tide was rushing through oyster reefs on the east side of the island, and we had to paddle with all our strength to overcome the current and clear the reefs. Then we had a pleasant fifteen minutes of sailing toward the entrance to Lopez River, and we had some breakfast as we left civilization behind.
On Lopez River we turned into the wind and took down the mast to reduce wind resistance. We spotted paddlers ahead, and paddled hard to catch up. They were TideTraveller, SandyBottom, and Santiago. They would share our chickee at Rogers River Bay.
We hoped to sail again when we turned the corner at Sunday Bay to head southeast, but it was not to be. It was a hot day of paddling into southeast headwinds.
We followed the winding Wilderness Waterway through alternating bays and winding rivers.
Most of the day our chickee-mates were within sight, but ahead of us. Their boats were a bit faster for paddling. Finally, we gave up on sailing and packed up the amas to further reduce wind resistance. They stopped for a break at Darwin's Place, but soon caught us again.
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We were paddling together again at sunset on Lostman's Five Bay. We still had about 12 miles to go to Roger's River Bay Chickee.
We discussed timing the tide through the Nightmare. After much discussion regarding estimated travel times, tide tables, offsets, and various philosophies regarding the best tide level to catch favorable currents in Broad River and Broad Creek, the group decided that it would be ideal to leave the chickee at 4 AM. This gave us a sense of urgency to get there as soon as possible in order to get some sleep.
The cool night air was invigorating after the heat of the afternoon. We formed a pack to share in the burden of navigation, and paddled at a focused pace. The routes I had plotted on Google Earth and transferred to the GPS were working well.
Each bay was a few miles across. I would steer into the darkness based on the red arrow on the GPS, and the boat compass. After an hour or so, a darker line of mangroves would appear against the dark sky and water. Just before we hit the dark mangroves, an opening would appear, and the route ahead would materialize like magic. Reflective numbered markers confirmed our location from time to time.
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The milky way stretched out overhead in the dark sky. Green phosphorescence glowed in the water with each paddle stroke. In some places comb jellies made large glowing balls of a few inches across. In other places there were a few pea-sized glowing creatures, and in some places tiny glowing plankton would make continuous streaks of light on each paddle stroke.
We were all very tired by the time we reached the end of Big Lostman's Bay around 10 PM, which was appropriately named. The islands were in the wrong places on the chart, and the GPS showed us paddling over land. TideTraveller said that we were in the Bermuda Triangle. Fortunately, the route points from Google Earth were in the right places. We finally arrived at the chickee around 10:30 PM.
I was totally exhausted. I cooked some backpacker meals and filled the mocha and hot meal thermos for the next day, while Lauren set up the tent. The chickee was swaying with all the people hurrying to get to bed, and we were afraid we would fall over the side in our tired condition, an especially worrisome prospect, as alligators are known to lurk below chickees to feed on food scraps tossed overboard by campers.
I asked the others if they were still planning to get up at 4 AM. They did not seem to be in a condition to rethink the tide tables, and would stick to their original plan. We were ready for a good night's sleep after all the shenanigans at Camp LuLu and the park office the night before, and decided to go with Ranger Dave's advice to arrive at the Nightmare at noon tomorrow. When the others packed up to leave at 4 AM, I wished them good luck, and rolled over into blissful sleep.
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