Flamingo Area Paddling; Canoe Heaven

Paddling rules in Flamingo. We paddled a different creek every day each of our four full days in Flamingo. Monday was a beautiful day; 75 degrees and sunny. We biked to the Visitor's Center and Marina and attended a "Croc Talk" led by a volunteer naturalist. We saw several crocodiles on the bank across the canal. During the talk a manatee appeared in the canal, and the talk morphed into a manatee talk. We put-in late in the afternoon at the Noble Hammock Canoe Trail. Noble Hammock Trail is a 2-mile loop paddle through a red mangrove forest. It meanders primarily through mangrove islands and tunnels, but also had a few open places. The trail featured very sharp bends and required strong turning skills. Dorcas got to show off her superb bow draw many times. We finished shortly before dusk, and it was a perfect way to end our first full day in the Everglades. We had our only serious bug encounter this evening. Shortly after dark, I was outside grilling dinner. All of a sudden I was swarmed with mosquitoes. I grabbed the meat and quickly retreated to the safety of the coach. But they were inside too! The door and all the windows were closed, but there were tons of mosquitoes in the house. We quickly swatted them and mashed them against the ceiling of the coach, but there were more every minute. Where were they coming from??? We soon realized they were thicker near the edges of the slide room openings, so it appeared like they were coming in there, although the slide seals should prevent this. I sprayed DEET all around the edges of the slides, and this seemed to be effective. After about an hour all the mosquitoes had been executed. I figure we murdered over 500 mosquitoes during that assault, and the white ceiling of the coach looked like a bloody battlefield. Amazingly, that was the only time we really experienced any bugs during our 5 nights in Flamingo. Perhaps they were so thoroughly devastated that night, that they had no further will to attack.

On Tuesday we participated in a ranger-led paddle on the Mud Lake Loop Trail. Flamingo has a ranger-led paddle every morning to a different venue in the area. It is a great program, because they provide the boats and it's free. It's a great opportunity for folks to paddle who don't have a boat of their own. We chose this particular trip because the paddle was being led by Ranger Daniel. We had attended an evening ranger program by Daniel on Sunday, and he was very entertaining and funny. We knew he would be fun to paddle with. We met the group at 7:45 am at Coot Bay Pond, only to find that Daniel had slightly changed the route due to high winds from the north. The paddle across Coot Bay would be difficult with a strong north wind, so Daniel eliminated that leg of the paddle. We ended up putting in on the Homestead Canal, a foul, stagnant, sulphurous and seldom-paddled water course. We paddled this canal for almost an hour before bumping out into Bear Lake, where we briefly experienced the strong winds. We then ducked back into a red mangrove tunnel and paddled into Mud Lake. Another mangrove tunnel led us into Coot Bay, where we again experienced the fierce north wind. Finally we took another mangrove tunnel into the Buttonwood Canal which returned us to our starting point. As expected Daniel was very entertaining and a fountain of knowledge on flora, fauna and local lore. We saw many bromeliads, different varieties of air plants, perched in the mangrove branches. We also saw the infamous Manchineel tree, one of the most toxic plants known. Early natives tied victims to the trunk of this tree to torture them and assure an excruciating and painful death. Explorer Ponce de Leon was killed with an arrow poisoned with Manchineel sap. Dang! Just when we learned to avoid the Poisonwood tree, so common in the Keys, now we have to worry about the Manchineel. I'm starting to miss plain ol' poison ivy.

On Wednesday we paddled the Nine Mile Pond Trail. Nine Mile Pond is particularly interesting because it is at the boundary between fresh water flowing in from the north and the brackish water from Florida Bay to the south. The paddle started with a series of small ponds and mangrove islands and the water was much clearer than other paddles we did. As we paddled further from the road the route became more open and entered a prairie. We encountered one other party who couldn't find the next trail marker and were lost. I think they were glad to see us. This was the only other party we saw all day. Maybe all the others were hopelessly lost, never to be seen again. When we started we were paddling downwind and enjoyed an easy ride. When we made the turn back to the road we paid the price and fought a fierce head wind back to the car. It was a 5-mile paddle, but felt much longer. This is the only paddle where we saw alligators, probably because it was our only paddle in predominantly fresh water.

On Thursday we paddled the route to Hell's Bay our most ambitious paddle in Flamingo. Hell's Bay is so-named because it is "Hell to get into and Hell to get out of." The first mile of the route involves tight and winding mangrove tunnels, reminiscent of the Noble Hammock Loop. Eventually the route opened up into a series of mangrove islands and large ponds. We passed the Lard Can campsite and eventually reached the Pearl Bay Chickee, where we lunched. Pearl Bay Chickee consists of two covered camping platforms connected by a walkway that had an outhouse in the center. Strangely, the left hand platform was designated as a handicapped site, although I could see no difference between the two. After lunch we reversed our route and completed our 11 mile paddle back to our put-in.

While in Flamingo we paddled only interior creeks and ponds. We did not paddle the open waters of Florida Bay. There are certainly good paddles in the bay, but it was fairly windy most days we were there, and we don't particularly enjoy large open waters. Maybe next time we will find a nice calm day and explore Florida Bay.