Everglades National Park, Florida

Friday Dec 29th, 2006
A frenzied trip shopping, 7 hours behind schedule and and one wrong turn later, we were heading towards Everglades. The SUV was damn powerful, the roads empty at 1:00 in the night, the music raucous and we - the float-trippers were a great company to be in. It was to be a long drive of about 13 hours before we enter Everglades driving through the Carolinas, Georgia and finally the south-end of Florida on highway 75. With people (but me) taking turns behind the wheel, we stopped at an esoteric place within Florida for breakfast. The plan was to be able to make it to the Gulf Coast Visitor Center by early noon and jet set on our canoes that very same day. While we proposed, God disposed as follows. A terrible accident on the highway slowed the traffic down to 5 mph. We sweltered in the Florida heat and enjoyed the beginnings of the sub-tropical landscape for as long as we could. After the landscape had nothing new to offer, and we ran out of jokes, interesting anecdotes and gas, we decided to detour. Deadlines are a great accompaniment of the urban life. If not anything they do give that adrenaline rush constantly making one feel bad about how very unpunctual and disorganized he or she was. And once the he/she becomes a they, he/she finds another someone in the they to play the blame game while heading towards the destination. Anyway, our original deadline was to be in the Visitor Center by 8:00 am. And our current deadline was to be there by 4:30 pm. 4:30 pm because that's when the Visitor Center closes for the day. We can't make reservations for any camp-ground with the Visitor Center closed and would have to stay at a primitive camp-ground for the night. With time drifting away on the Florida highway amidst terrible traffic we unanimously voted the situation to be quite hopeless. We agreed to give up on the 4:30 deadline as well and just sail along with the traffic like carefree birds. By now we were almost 24 hrs behind schedule. Motivated by this statistic and to add meaning to a hopeless 18 hrs on the roads, Amar and Anand proposed we stop at a beach nearby and catch the sunset there. I must say what we found was more than what we had asked for. The beach had such beautiful white sands that one person almost judged it to be artificial or as they say too good to be true. There were grills by the beach to cook our food and what more, two people were walking the stairway to heaven on their guitars. One of them gave us an empty pizza box so we could get the fire started. So, we unpacked just the food stuff, grilled our chicken and the vegetables by the white Atlantic beach. It was quite a sumptuous dinner with meat and eggs and bread and great coffee after dinner. Hardly had anyone suspected then that it was to be our last great dinner in the coming few days in the wilderness. Oh I forgot to mention that whenever we begin to cook we seem to be asking a standard set of questions in a certain order to one another. Questions such as where is the flash light, where is the knife, where the glasses, where are the spoons. I think as a group we love asking these questions, just one of the many things we love to do besides floating. Anyway after dinner, we started driving towards Everglades. We talked about the gays, Da Vinci & Turing, feminists, the beauty of the female body and the utilitarian male body. Emotionally, the discussions surged up and plummeted down in regular patterns finally ending in effusive laughter and good humor. Here's me and Amar taking a stroll on the curb-side as we entered Everglades area.Tonight we camped at a primitive campground with portable toilets.




Saturday Dec 30th, 2006

Anand, the early-riser and the photographer coaxed people to be up by 6:00 am so we can be at the visitor center first thing in the morning and get a campground reservation within the national park area. We were on the roads again by 9:30 am. We drove through the Everglades city staright onto the visitor center. Turns out bad news reached the visitor center before we did. All campgrounds were taken for the night. We got a camping permit for Tiger Keys for Sunday night. For tonight, we have to find a campground outside of the park area possibly in the Fakahatchee state park area. I jumped at the idea of camping in Fakahatchee for virtually I had already made a trip to the swamps of Fakahatchee with John Laroche and Susan Orlean (writer of Orchid Thief) to view the beautiful ghost orchid and unlike Orlean, surging with passion. My problem with handling romanticism is that within moments I feel light on the head and the feet, skip the runway and instantly take-off. This time, as always, the nautical map of Everglades steered my flight downwards and I fell with a crash and a thud. The nearest campground, the ever elusive Lulu beach is 8 nautical miles away. A nautical mile is 1.15 miles. Since we were starting at 2:00 in the afternoon, we have had to row 9.2 miles in 4 hours to hit the campground before night falls and we all were amatuer rowers. However, we were still young, and the sun shone brightly as ever up in the sky, there was absolutely nothing to mar our spirits. Reason gave way to emotion and we set out in search of adventure on uncharted territory. We decided to detour from the marked water trails enroute to Lulu. And thus started our journey after Abhay took the last puff of his Malboro and did a sanity check on the items he must carry to survive the ocean - smoke, GPS and water. Speech and tickets are of not much use while in the sea. Our canoes had quite some baggage, the half-empty bag of charcoal, camping gear, soups and noodles.

The start was rough with the high tides as faithfully predicted by the tide chart. However, we quickly managed to row out into placid waters. It was a pleasant sight out in the sea mottled with the ten thousand islands of devilishly intelligent trees they call the mangroves. The mangroves have been able to exploit a habitat of intertidal zones by growing physiological adaptations such as aerial roots to feed on sunlight and air.

Now, these mangrove swamps had hidden in their heart swarms of blood-sucking black biting midgets call no-seeums. We discovered their existance by experience. A zillion tiny bites on every exposed inch of the body. The midgets lauched this first attack of the day when Amar went on a reconaissance trip to one of these islands to determine the future course of the journey. And immediately we knew we were in forbidden territory, the gates of hell. The journals say that they put our blood to good use to nurture thir larvae. That's hardly a consolation.

After rescuing ourselves from the deadly bugs we kept rowing for a long time always staying away from any mangrove swamps. While rowing, we saw pelicans in flights, jumping fishes, menatees, dolphins and many more exotic species. Amar and Abhay would ocasionally do a check on the directions. I thought they had difficulty making the map and GPS to agree at times. But I was already beginning to feel jaded and confused. Very soon, people started growing impaitent as there were still no signs of any campground within our field of view and we were fatigued and hungry.

Anand was the first person to voice his discomfort. He brandished his cell phone while on his canoe. He meant we should call for help now or it would be too late once his cell phone died.That must have been 5:00 in the evening. We however silenced him for the moment and rowed on.

Suddenly I had a desperate craving to feel land, solid land to stand-up on, twist and turn, stretch and aimlessly ambulate. The mangrove swamps were as close to solid ground as I would get here in the middle of the ocean. I didnot want to be sacrificed at the altar of the midgets one more time. So I tried to engage my mind in vagrant thoughts. Soups and noodles were as vagrant as I could get with my thinking.

The sun was almost at the fag end of his life, and at some level we were too. At that moment Amar fished the camera and captured our pathetic yet smiling faces in the magnificent backdrop of the setting sun upon the Atlantic waters.

We are now officialy rowing by the night. Technically this was moonlight kayaking only stripped off any of that embellishment of romance. Just the night before Amar and me talked about moonlight kayaking on Big Sur. We had our wishes come true too soon in a manner most unexpected and undesired.

Suddenly we noticed a sharp white line at a distance bordering a mangrove swamp. As we rowed closer, the line expanded into a tiny white beach with a big enough clearing for all of our feets.Amidst bug bites, we rested there for a while. I had already lost of speech owing to incruciating pain in the arms. When winter comes can spring be far behind. We saw this little beach attached to a mangrove swamp. So, we hoped to see more of such beaches now. And, we set off again. This time, there was a slight change in configuration when Shaunak was to steer the canoe and Anand would be the rower.This arrangement proved disastrous for they were unable to steer and follow our boats. Very soon, we lost them to the darkness of the sea. We could neither see nor hear them anymore. Meanwhile, the sea had started getting rough again. As our tiny boat swayed in the cradle of the angry ocean, and I rowed forward with the last bit of strength I had left in my arms I heard perhaps a dolphin or perhaps a bigger mammal following the boat very closely. The intensity of the sound did not change and it was produced in quick succession. Amar tried to appease me saying I was imagining things and God knows how much I wanted to believe him.

Suddenly we saw a very brightly lit circular spot a little further on, in the middle of the sea. I closed my eyes and opened them again to make sure it was still there. I thought perhaps my transformation was complete from sanity to hallucination. We kept rowing closer and lo and behold we see our garden of eden, our brigadoon, our Shangri-la right in front of our eyes. We couldnot rush faster to the arms of this little beach of immaculate white sands. In retrospection it sounds comically tragic the manner in which me and Amar came to logical conclusions about the nature of that white spot on the ocean in the darkness of the night. And finally land happened. Oh sweet sweet land!

This promenade was just the tip of the ice berg. It led into this once upon a time campground called Indian Keys. After being devasted by the hurricane it was no longer a designated campsite as we found out the next day.The nautical map had a printing mistake there one that cost us a 100$ each. But what do we care. We just found our our feet back. Part of the beach was submerged under water but we could wade our way to the island if we liked. We decided to wait there for our crew missing in action.

We kept signaling with our powerful flashlight until finally we saw another light at a distance sending acknowledgements. Abhay, who had gone back looking for them, came back on the canoe with Anand and Shaunak, hauling the empty kayak by the side.He found them just in time before a million dollar rescue and search operation was to be launched based on thier 911 call.

Of what happened later I donot know. Amar passed me a cup of warm soup and noodles inside the tent. I dozed off and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Monday, Dec 31st, 2006

Today is New Year's Eve. I was greeted in the morning by two law enforcement rangers. They spotted our tents from their motor boat and perhaps mistook us for illegal immigrants from Cuba on the hideout. Of Cuban cigars we had none, just a packet of Buddha Bar (tobacco) and a simple pipe. Shaunak was worried he might be arrested on charges of smuggling narcotics . But none of that happened. It was plain old "we are worried about your safety, so we will fine you, so you remember to be safer next time". And so the rangers left after wishing us a happy new year. I picked few sea shells on the beach and we explored the island a bit. Soon we rowed 'homeward bound'. We reached the visitor center at 4:00 pm. As we were unhauling, I noticed the packet of half-empty charcoal that sailed faithfully with us and came back safe and unused.Thus ended the story of the five brave rowers and a big bag of charcoal.

We drove upto Orlando that night with the car reeking of wet clothes. We celebrated the midnight of new year's eve watching fireworks in Disneyworld and slept in Daytona beach that night.

I have never had a more beautiful 1st of January than this. A new sun upon the eastern sky heralding a branch new day, a brand new year of possibilities. And right then I lived a metaphor the most beautiful one so far.



We spent the rest of the day in Kennedy Space Center and finally drove back home at 6:00 that evening.