The Peaceful Canoe Trip That Wasn’t: Day 3 – Jarod's Stories and Experiments

At dawn, we both heard a funny scratching sound on the canoe. What it was, who knows. But we both couldn’t move to see. I made my auto scare the creature natural cricketing noise I created on my first camping trip, but it didn’t seem to hold of the scratching for long. We both wondered what it could be but it was definitely a creature or creatures of some sort, most likely raccoons.

Weber took matters into his own hands. He started to growl and suddenly yelled out a Doberman type bark. It was AMAZING and totally made the entire previous night worth it!

Sun was up a small tad; we had to get the HELL out of there. We were cold, but movement would warm us and with clear skies, we had maybe 8 miles until another site, this time hopefully a straight away. An added bonus was the wind was going to be behind us, so cheers, we were off.

The previous night we had lost our crappy map into a puddle, or I did rather, therefore WE did. It was stuck together and non readable. Well, STAY LEFT should do it!

We went blazing fast to the next beach site we thought we found. It wasn’t sand as much as it was just tons and tons of shells everywhere of all sizes, mostly broken and small. We didn’t know if it was, in fact, the next camp site (NW Cape), but it would suffice to dry everything off and relax a bit before making another decision. And boy did we do that very thing!

We pulled up and pulled the canoe up the beach. Nice clear day that was warm for once, and just enough wind to balance it all. We stripped the canoe, laid all of our stuff out and tied it to trees, tipped the canoe and cleaned the mud out in the ocean and relaxed. And by relax, that meant that I was gonna go swim in the ocean in my birthday suit and then go on a run in my Vibram Five Fingers down the beach, not in birthday suit! I’d have attempted to run barefoot, but it was sharp there with the shells when I tested, and my nailless from 1st marathon big toe was tender from all the crap soaking in it (at least mostly salt water). Regarding the shells, I went hunting for good ones also. There were some amazing shells everywhere so, it would be fun to see what I could find.

Only later did we learn that going out into that ocean area to swim was not advised at all as it was a known shark area. But hey, I bathed and swam free. And didn’t get sharked. Since I was far down shore, I yelled for Weber to take some pictures of me, figuring they would be funny to have. The swim was AMAZINGLY fun. So was the run following. We then decided to go to the next beach site, loaded up and got ready to take our nice clean and dry canoe back to the sea. So easy sounding. I dropped the shells (more on why later) and got in.

Weber pushed us out. The waves had picked up at the shore but that is to be expected as it is the shore! He pushed and jumped in. As he stepped in, I laughed and said “Dude, your butt is out and in my face”. At that time, a random big wave, higher than our canoe, came rushing in, drenching all of our finally for once dry stuff and flooded the canoe. Then of course another wave came as we got pinned by a small 3 foot tree that spun the canoe sideways and tipped it halfway over. Funny, ironic, laughy laughy give me some taffy. I jumped out with Weber and we pulled the canoe back to the beach. Rinse, repeat, only this time, it was just pumping. Screw this mess, we would dry our stuff again once we hit land again down ocean or Gulf or WHATEVA.

We dug deep and blasted out this time, not taking any chance of a tip. And we were off. Relax time from hence forth on the ocean. With the exception of some dolphins coming close to us, Weber finally getting some good shots of them, it was a calm and peaceful ride for the entire stretch. We were hypnotized. Beautifulness everywhere as we continued to who knows what beach site. But there was a beach site and it was HUGE.

After about 5-6 hours of canoeing, we stopped at this site. There were 3 tents already up, all close to each other and one being the biggest tent I had ever seen. A woman and young lady were sitting in lawn chairs as we pulled up and introduced ourselves. They returned the intro and also introduced us to Frank, the American Crocodile that was about 200 yards down the cape beach. We quickly went with the 16 year old daughter and her big Nikon camera with the big ass zoom lens to catch a peek. I mean hell, I haven’t seen a croc yet. And I already had the hat! Unfortunately, it scrammed to the ocean before we got that close to it. But I got a decent glimpse. Understand the crocodiles here are a salt water dude whilst the alligators are fresh water. So the tip of Florida, having both kinds of water, is about the only place in the world where these cousins both live.

On our way back, the dad arrived with the younger daughter. We intro’d, found out we were at Middle Cape, and they started to gather wood for their fire while Weber and I set up camp and got our stuff out to see if it was wet from the near tip over. Most were not (cheers for our extra trash bag wrapping!). We got the tent up and I decided I was gonna go run on this big beach, looking for more shells and a conch! I WANTED ME A CONCH!

And I found me a conch. It was heavily weathered but huge, just right. I found all sorts of big amazing shells as well. I put them in a designated place and started running my off road course, jumping over branches and dodging the big shells. It was addicting, I’m telling ya. When I got back, Weber was sitting at the fire the family had prepared, so I went inside the tent and chugged some apple juice. After that I watched breathtaking sun set as it wrapped all around us in our open corner of the beach.

Regarding the juice fast and this trip thus far: when the juice hits the stomach, it is an almost super energy boost. Not different from a sugar rush but the juice doesn’t seem to crash as bad. And the energy seems never ending. Not once in this trip did I run out of energy, and I felt better than ever, even in all of the extremities. I was barely sore at any time either. I didn’t KNOW it would be this way, but that is how it worked out. I brought a big glass jug of organic apple juice (glass wasn’t wise but it worked out), a plastic bottle of organic lemonade (lemon juice and white grape) and jugs of a fruit mix. I would not normally use plastic but there was no other choice here obviously. I was not hungry at all until the night of Day 3, and for good reason.

The family busted out some Italian beans and rice. With chicken, followed by marshmallows. I didn’t want to share the strange or dumbness of being in a juice fast, let alone on such a canoe trip like ours doing so. The girls really pushed for us to eat. I said I was already full, but tried to edge Weber into taking their food, even though he had already eaten his trail mix, and near finished it. It was only Wednesday, and we were to return on Friday and he was about out of food. I didn’t know if he would make it on no food. And with our luck, who knows what might happen next.

He decided to eat. And as I wanted that food more than ANYTHING, especially the marshmallows. I declined, looking up in disbelieve at this challenge. But at that point I saw the most stars I had ever seen in a non city ambiented sky. I went to the tent to sleep and Weber stayed. I was beat, not having slept much the previous night.

It was chilly but I stripped down to boxers once inside the sleeping bag, and passed out in 2.63 minutes. Weber returned a bit later, to engage in another night of getting wet winded. These were the nights of the minimalist for him. Reminded me of the old saying about if you make your bed, sleep in it. Only reversed. HA!

The Never Everglades Serenades
Part 1: The Alligator That Smiled At Me